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REFLECTIONS    AND 
COMMENTS 

1865-1895 


BY 

EDWIN   LAWKENCE  GODKIN 


NEW  YOKK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
1895 


COPYRIGHT,  1895,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNEK'S  SONS 


TROW  DIRECTORY 

HUNTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 


TO 
CHARLES  ELIOT  NORTON 

TO  WHOM  THE  FOUNDATION  OP  "THE  NATION"  WAS  LARGELY 

DUE,   IN    GRATEFUL   ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

OF  A  LONG  FRIENDSHIP 


THE  articles  in  this  volume  have  appeared  in 
the  Nation  during  the  last  thirty  years,  and  are 
reprinted  almost  in  chronological  order.  As  a 
rule  they  treat  of  the  principal  non-political  topics, 
both  grave  and  gay,  which  during  that  period  have 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  American  public. 
Some  slight  changes  have  been  made  in  the  text 
where  lapse  of  time,  or  change  of  circumstances, 
seemed  to  obscure  the  sense.  The  concluding 
portion  of  the  notice  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  contain- 
ing an  appreciation  of  his  philosophy,  was  written 
by  Chauncey  Wright,  of  Cambridge,  whose  early 
death  twenty  years  ago  was  a  severe  loss  to  science 
as  well  as  to  his  friends.  There  is,  of  course, 
always  a  question  whether  any  collection  of  this 
sort  can  have  permanent  value.  This  I  must 
leave  the  reader  to  answer  for  himself.  I  confess 
that  the  publishers'  estimate  of  the  articles  has  had 
more  to  do  with  their  reproduction  than  my  own. 

E.  L.  G. 

October,  1895. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PEACE,      1 

CULTURE  AND  WAR, 11 

THE  COMPARATIVE  MORALITY  OP  NATIONS,  .     "  .        .  19 

THE  " COMIC-PAPER"  QUESTION, 29 

MR.  FROUDE  AS  A  LECTURER, 40 

MR.  HORACE  GREELEY, 48 

THE  MORALS  AND  MANNERS  OF  THE  KITCHEN,    .        .  56 

JOHN  STUART  MILL, 67 

PANICS, 79 

THE  ODIUM  PHILOLOGICUM,    .  ' 96 

PROFESSOR  HUXLEY'S  LECTURES, 104 

CIRCUMSTANTIAL  EVIDENCE, 119 

TYNDALL  AND  THE  THEOLOGIANS, 129 

THE  CHURCH  AND  SCIENCE, 138 

THE  CHURCH  AND  GOOD  CONDUCT,         ....  146 

ROLE  OF  THE  UNIVERSITIES  IN  POLITICS,     .        .        .  155 

THE  HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY, 164 


x  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  SOUTH  AFTER  THE  WAR, 173 

CHROMO-CIVILIZATION, 192 

"THE  SHORT-HAIRS"  AND  "THE  SWALLOW-TAILS,"    .  206 

JUDGES  AND  WITNESSES, 219 

"  THE  DEBTOR  CLASS," 227 

COMMENCEMENT  ADMONITION 235 

"ORGANS," 242 

EVIDENCE  ABOUT  CHARACTER, 249 

PHYSICAL  FORCE  IN  POLITICS 257 

"COURT  CIRCLES," 267 

LIVING  IN  EUROPE  AND  GOING  TO  IT,  .        .        .        .  275 

CARLYLE'S  POLITICAL  INFLUENCE,         ....  287 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SUMMER  RESORT,  .        .        .  295 

SUMMER  REST, 309 

THE  SURVIVAL  OF  TYPES, 316 

WILL  WIMBLES, ,322 


REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

1865-1895 


PEACE 

THE  horrors  of  war  are  just  now  making  a  deeper 
impression  than  ever  on  the  popular  mind,  owing 
to  the  close  contact  with  the  battle-field  and  the 
hospital  into  which  the  railroad  and  the  telegraph 
and  the  newspaper  have  brought  the  public  of  all 
civilized  countries.  Wars  are  fought  out  now,  so 
to  speak,  under  every  man's  and  woman's  eyes; 
and,  what  is  perhaps  of  nearly  as  much  importance, 
the  growth  of  commerce  and  manufactures,  and  the 
increased  complication  of  the  social  machine,  ren- 
der the  smallest  derangement  of  it  anywhere  a 
concern  and  trouble  to  all  nations.  The  conse- 
quence is  that  the  desire  for  peace  was  never  so 
deep  as  it  is  now,  and  the  eagerness  of  all  good 
people  to  find  out  some  other  means  of  deciding 
international  disputes  than  mutual  killing  never 
so  intense. 

And  yet  the  unconsciousness  of  the  true  nature 

and  difficulties  of  the  problem  they  are  trying  to 

solve,  which  is  displayed  by  most  of  those  who 

make  the  advocacy  of  peace  their  special  work,  is 

1 


8  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

very  discouraging.  "We  are  far  from  believing  that 
the  incessant  and  direct  appeals  to  the  public  con- 
science on  the  subject  of  war  are  not  likely  in  the 
long  run  to  produce  some  effect;  but  it  is  very 
difficult  to  resist  the  conclusion  that  the  efforts  of 
the  special  advocates  of  peace  have  thus  far  helped 
to  spread  and  strengthen  the  impression  that  there 
is  no  adequate  substitute  for  the  sword  as  an  ar- 
biter between  nations,  or,  in  other  words,  to  hard- 
en the  popular  heart  on  the  subject  of  military 
slaughter.  It  is  certain  that,  during  the  last  fifty 
years,  the  period  in  which  peace  societies  have 
been  at  work,  armies  have  been  growing  steadily 
larger,  the  means  of  destruction  have  been  multi- 
plying, and  wars  have  been  as  frequent  and  as 
bloody  as  ever  before;  and,  what  is  worse,  the 
popular  heart  goes  into  war  as  it  has  never  done 
in  past  ages. 

The  great  reason  why  the  more  earnest  enemies 
of  war  have  not  made  more  progress  toward  doing 
away  with  it,  has  been  that,  from  the  very  outset 
of  their  labors  down  to  the  present  moment,  they 
have  devoted  themselves  mainly  to  depicting 
its  horrors  and  to  denouncing  its  cruelty.  In 
other  words,  they  almost  invariably  approach 
it  from  a  side  with  which  nations  actually  en- 
gaged in  it  are  just  as  familiar  as  anybody,  but 
which  has  for  the  moment  assumed  in  their  eyes  a 


PEACE  3 

secondary  importance.  The  peace  advocates  are 
constantly  talking  of  the  guilt  of  killing,  while  the 
combatants  only  think,  and  will  only  think,  of  the 
nobleness  of  dying.  To  the  peace  advocates  the 
soldier  is  always  a  man  going  to  slaughter  his 
neighbors ;  to  his  countrymen  he  is  a  man  going 
to  lose  his  life  for  their  sake — that  is,  to  perform 
the  loftiest  act  of  devotion  of  which  a  human 
being  is  capable.  It  is  not  wonderful,  then,  that 
the  usual  effect  of  appeals  for  peace  made  by 
neutrals  is  to  produce  mingled  exasperation  and 
amusement  among  the  belligerents.  To  the  great 
majority  of  Europeans  our  civil  war  was  a  shock- 
ing spectacle,  and  the  persistence  of  the  North  in 
carrying  it  on  a  sad  proof  of  ferocity  and  lust  of 
dominion.  To  the  great  majority  of  those  en- 
gaged in  carrying  it  on  the  struggle  was  a  holy 
one,  in  which  it  was  a  blessing  to  perish.  Prob- 
ably nothing  ever  fell  more  cruelly  on  human  ears 
than  the  taunts  and  execrations  which  American 
wives  and  mothers  heard  from  the  other  side  of 
the  ocean,  heaped  on  the  husbands  and  sons 
whom  they  had  sent  to  the  battle-field,  never 
thinking  at  all  of  their  slaying,  but  thinking  solely 
of  their  being  slain  ;  and  very  glad  indeed  that,  if 
death  had  to  come,  it  should  come  in  such  a  cause. 
If  we  go  either  to  France  or  Germany  to-day,  we 
shall  find  a  precisely  similar  state  of  feeling.  If 


4  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

the  accounts  we  hear  be  true — and  we  know  of  no 
reason  to  doubt  them — there  is  no  more  question 
in  the  German  and  French  mind  that  French  and 
German  soldiers  are  doing  their  highest  duty  in 
fighting,  than  there  was  in  the  most  patriotic 
Northern  or  Southern  home  during  our  war ;  and 
we  may  guess,  therefore,  how  a  German  or  French 
mother,  the  light  of  whose  life  had  gone  out  at 
Gravelotte  or  Orleans,  and  who  hugs  her  sorrow 
as  a  great  gift  of  God,  would  receive  an  address 
from  New  York  on  the  general  wickedness  and 
folly  of  her  sacrifice. 

The  fact  is — and  it  is  one  of  the  most  suggestive 
facts  we  know  of — that  the  very  growth  of  the 
public  conscience  has  helped  to  make  peace  some- 
what more  difficult,  war  vastly  more  terrible. 
When  war  was  the  game  of  kings  and  soldiers, 
the  nations  went  into  it  in  a  half-hearted  way,  and 
sincerely  loathed  it ;  now  that  war  is  literally  an 
outburst  of  popular  feeling,  the  friend  of  peace 
finds  most  of  his  logic  powerless.  There  is  little 
use  in  reasoning  with  a  man  who  is  ready  to  die 
on  the  folly  or  wickedness  of  dying.  When  a 
nation  has  worked  itself  up  to  the  point  of  believ- 
ing that  there  are  objects  within  its  reach  for 
which  life  were  well  surrendered,  it  has  reached  a 
region  in  which  the  wise  saws  and  modern  in- 
stances of  the  philosopher  or  lawyer  cannot  touch 


PEACE  5 

it,  and  in  which  pictures  of  the  misery  of  war  only 
help  to  make  the  martyr's  crown  seem  more  glo- 
rious. 

Therefore,  we  doubt  whether  the  work  of  peacp 
is  well  done  by  those  who,  amidst  the  heat  and  fury 
of  actual  hostilities,  dwell  upon  the  folly  and  cruelty 
of  them,  and  appeal  to  the  combatants  to  stop 
fighting,  on  the  ground  that  fighting  involves  suf- 
fering and  loss  of  life,  and  the  destruction  of  prop- 
erty. The  principal  effect  of  this  on  "the  average 
man  "  has  been  to  produce  the  impression  that  the 
friends  of  peace  are  ninnies,  and  to  make  him  smile 
over  the  earnestness  with  which  everybody  looks 
on  his  own"  "wars  as  holy  and  inevitable,  and  his 
neighbors'  wars  as  unnecessary  and  wicked.  Any7 
practical  movement  to  put  an  end  to  war  must  be-J 
gin  far  away  from  the  battle-field  and  its  horrors.  | 
It  must  take  up  and  deal  with  the  various  influ- 
ences, social  and  political,  which  create  and  per- 
petuate the  state  of  mind  which  makes  people 
ready  to  fight.  Preaching  up  peace  and  preach- 
ing down  war  generally  are  very  like  general 
homilies  in  praise  of  virtue  and  denunciation  of 
vice.  Everybody  agrees  with  them,  but  nobody 
is  ever  ready  to  admit  their  applicability  to  his 
particular  case.  War  is,  in  our  time,  essentially 
the  people's  work.  Its  guilt  is  theirs,  as  its  losses 
and  sufferings  are  theirs.  All  attempts  to  saddle 


6  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

emperors,  kings,  and  nobles  with  the  responsibil- 
ity of  it  may  as  well  be  given  up  from  this  time 
forward. 

Now,  what  are  the  agencies  which  operate  in 
producing  the  frame  of  mind  which  makes  people 
ready  to  go  to  war  on  small  provocation  ?  It  is  at 
these  the  friends  of  peace  must  strike,  in  time  of 
peace,  and  not  after  the  cannon  has  begun  to  roar 
and  the  country  has  gone  mad  with  patriotism  and 
rage.  They  are,  first  of  all,  the  preaching  in  the 
press  and  elsewhere  of  the  false  and  pernicious 
doctrine  that  one  nation  gains  by  another's  losses, 
and  can  be  made  happy  by  its  misery ;  that  the 
United  States,  for  instance,  profits  m  the  long  run 
by  the  prostration  of  French,  German,  or  English 
industry.  One  of  the  first  duties  of  a  peace  so- 
ciety is  to  watch  this  doctrine,  and  hunt  it  down 
wherever  they  see  it,  as  one  of  the  great  promoters 
of  the  pride  and  hardness  of  heart  which  make 
war  seem  a  trifling  evil.  America  can  no  more 
gain  by  French  or  German  ruin  than  New  York 
can  gain  by  that  of  Massachusetts.  Secondly, 
there  is  the  mediaeval  doctrine  that  the  less  com- 
mercial intercourse  nations  carry  on  with  each 
other  the  better  for  both,  and  that  markets  won  or 
kept  by  force  are  means  of  gain.  There  has  prob- 
ably been  no  more  fruitful  source  of  war  than  this. 
It  has  for  three  centuries  desolated  the  world,  and 


PEACE  7 

all  peace  associations  should  fix  on  it,  wherever 
they  encounter  it,  the  mark  of  the  beast.  Thirdly, 
there  is  the  tendency  of  the  press,  which  is  now 
the  great  moulder  of  public  opinion,  to  take  what 
we  may  call  the  pugilist's  view  of  international 
controversies.  The  habit  of  taunting  foreign  dis- 
putants, sneering  at  the  cowardice  or  weakness  of 
the  one  who  shows  any  sign  of  reluctance  in  draw- 
ing the  sword,  and  counting  up  the  possible  profit 
to  its  own  country  of  one  or  other  being  well 
thrashed,  in  which  it  so  frequently  indulges,  has 
inevitably  the  effect  not  only  of  goading  the  dis- 
putants into  hostilities,  but  of  connecting  in  the 
popular  mind  at  home  the  idea  of  unreadiness  or 
unwiUingness  to  fight  with  baseness  and  meanness 
and  material  disadvantage.  Fourthly,  there  is  the 
practice,  to  wrhich  the  press,  orators,  and  poets  in 
every  civilized  country  steadily  adhere,  of  main- 
taining, as  far  as  their  influence  goes,  the  same 
notions  about  national  honor  which  once  prevailed 
about  individual  "  honor " —  that  is,  the  notion 
that  it  is  discreditable  to  acknowledge  one's  self 
in  the  wrong,  and  always  more  becoming  to  fight 
than  apologize.  "  The  code  "  has  been  abandoned 
in  the  Northern  States  and  in  England  in  the  regu- 
lations of  the  relations  of  individual  men,  and  a 
duellist  is  looked  on,  if  not  as  a  wicked,  as  a  crack- 
brained  person;  but  in  some  degree  in  both  of 


8  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

them,  and  in  a  great  degree  in  all  other  countries, 
it  still  regulates  the  mode  in  which  international 
quarrels  are  brought  to  a  conclusion. 

Last  of  all,  and  most  important  of  all,  it  is  the 
duty  of  peace  societies  to  cherish  and  exalt  the 
idea  of  law  as  the  only  true  controller  of  interna- 
tional relations,  and  discourage  and  denounce  their 
submission  to  sentiment.  The  history  of  civiliza- 
tion is  the  history  of  the  growth  amongst  human 
beings  of  the  habit  of  submitting  their  dealings 
with  each  other  to  the  direction  of  rules  of  univer- 
•  sal  application,  and  their  withdrawal  of  them  from 
the  domain  of  personal  feeling.  The  history  of 
"international  law  "  is  the  history  of  the  efforts  of 
a  number  of  rulers  and  statesmen  to  induce  nations 
to  submit  themselves  to  a  similar  regime — that  is, 
to  substitute  precedents  and  rules  based  on  gener- 
al canons  of  morality  and  on  principles  of  munici- 
pal law,  for  the  dictates  of  pride,  prejudice,  and 
passion,  in  their  mode  of  seeking  redress  of  inju- 
ries, of  interpreting  contracts,  exchanging  services, 
and  carrying  on  commercial  dealings.  Their  suc- 
cess thus  far  has  been  only  partial.  Agnation,  even 
the  most  highly  civilized,  is  still,  in  its  relations 
with  its  fellows,  in  a  condition  somewhat  analogous 
jff  that  of  the  individual_sayage^  JEt  chooses  its 
friends  from  whim  _or  fancy,  makes  enemies 
through  ignorance  or  caprice,  avenges  its'  wrongs 


PEACE 


in  a  torrent  of  rage,  or   through  a  ^old-blooded 

i    -  i    i  ^tt**m         °   ••  I^T— ^g—»ck**"a*       I  ^miDfe  .4  i» 

thirst  for  plunder^  and  respects  rules  and  usages 
ly  fitfully,  and  w^h  smn.11  a^frffl  jjgfl  fo(  the  possi- 


ble effect  °f  its  disregard  of  them  on  jilie  general 
welfare.  l'lie~man  or  the  woman  and,  let  us  say, 
"  the  mother  " — since  that  is  supposed  to  be,  in 
this  discussion,  a  term  of  peculiar  potency — who 
tries  to  exert  a  good  influence  on  public  opinion 
on  all  these  points,  to  teach  the  brotherhood  of 
man  as  an  economical  as  well  as  a  moral  and  relig- 
ous  truth ;  to  spread  the  belief  that  war  between 
any  two  nations  is  a  general  calamity  to  the  civil- 
ized world ;  that  it  is  as  unchristian  and  inhuman 
to  rouse  national  combativeness  as  to  rouse  indi- 
vidual combativeness,  as  absurd  to  associate  honor 
with  national  wrong-doing  as  with  individual  wrong- 
doing ;  and  that  peace  among  nations,  as  among 
individuals,  is,  and  can  only  be,  the  product  of 
general  reverence  for  law  and  general  distrust  of 
feeling — may  rest  assured  that  he  or  she  is  doing 
far  more  to  bring  war  to  an  end  than  can  be  done 
by  the  most  fervid  accounts  of  the  physical  suffer- 
ing it  causes.  It  will  be  a  sorrowful  day  for  any 
people  when  their  men  come  to  consider  death  on 
the  battle-field  the  greatest  of  evils,  and  the  hu- 
man heart  will  certainly  have  sadly  fallen  off  when 
those  who  stay  at  home  have  neither  gratitude  nor 
admiration  for  those  who  shoulder  the  musket,  or 


10  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

are  impressed  less  by  the  consideration  that  the 
soldiers  are  going  to  kill  others  than  by  the  con- 
sideration that  they  are  going  to  die  themselves. 
There  are  things  worth  cherishing  even  in  war; 
and  the  seeds  of  what  is  worst  in  it  are  sown  not 
in  camps,  barracks,  or  forts,  but  in  public  meetings 
and  newspapers  and  legislatures  and  in  literature. 


CULTURE  AND  WAK 

THE  feeling  of  amazement  with  which  the  world 
is  looking  on  at  the  Prussian  campaigns  comes 
not  so  much  from  the  tremendous  display  of  physi- 
cal force  they  afford  —  though  there  is  in  this 
something  almost  appalling  —  as  from  the  con- 
sciousness which  everybody  begins  to  have  that  to 
put  such  an  engine  of  destruction  as  the  German 
army  into  operation  there  must  be  behind  it  a 
new  kind  of  motive  power.  It  is  easy  enough  for 
any  government  to  put  its  whole  male  population 
under  arms,  or  even  to  lead  them  on  an  emer- 
gency to  the  field.  But  that  an  army  composed  in 
the  main  of  men  suddenly  taken  from  civil  pur- 
suits should  fight  and  march,  as  the  Prussian 
army  is  doing,  with  more  than  the  efficiency  of  any 
veteran  troops  the  world  has  yet  seen,  and  that 
the  administrative  machinery  by  which  they  are 
fed,  armed,  transported,  doctored,  shrived,  and 
buried  should  go  like  clock-work  on  the  enemy's 
soil,  and  that  the  people  should  submit  not  only 
without  a  murmur,  but  with  enthusiasm,  to  sacri- 


12  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

fices  such  as  have  never  before  been  exacted  of  any 
nation  except  in  the  very  throes  of  despair,  show 
that  something  far  more  serious  has  taken  place  in 
Prussia  than  the  transformation  of  the  country 
into  a  camp.  In  other  words,  we  are  not  witness- 
ing simply  a  levy  en  masse,  nor  yet  the  mere  main- 
tenance of  an  immense  force  by  a  military  mon- 
archy, but  the  application  to  military  affairs  of  the 
whole  intelligence  of  a  nation  of  great  mental  and 
moral  culture.  The  peculiarity  of  the  Prussian 
system  does  not  lie  in  the  size  of  its  armies  or  the 
perfection  of  its  armament,  but  in  the  character  of 
the  men  who  compose  it.  All  modern  armies,  ex- 
cept Cromwell's  "  New  Model  Army  "  and  that  of 
the  United  States  during  the  rebellion,  have  been 
composed  almost  entirely  of  ignorant  peasants 
drilled  into  passive  obedience  to  a  small  body  of 
professional  soldiers.  The  Prussian  army  is  the 
first,  however,  to  be  a  perfect  reproduction  of  the 
society  which  sends  it  to  the  field.  To  form  it, 
all  Prussian  men  lay  down  their  tools  or  pens  or 
books,  and  shoulder  muskets.  Consequently,  its 
excellences  and  defects  are  those  of  the  commu- 
nity at  large,  and  the  community  at.  large  being 
cultivated  in  a  remarkable  degree,  we  get  for  the 
first  time  in  history  a  real  example  of  the  devotion 
of  mind  and  training,  on  a  great  scale,  to  the  work 
of  destruction. 


CULTURE  AND    WAR  13 

Of  course,  the  quality  of  the  private  soldier  has 
in  all  wars  a  good  deal  to  do  with  making  or  mar- 
ring the  fortunes  of  commanders ;  but  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  no  strategists  have  ever  owed  so  much  to 
the  quality  of  their  men  as  the  Prussian  strategists. 
Their  perfect  handling  of  the  great  masses  which 
are  now  manoeuvring  in  France  has  been  made  in 
large  degree  possible  by  the  intelligence  of  the 
privates.  This  has  been  strikingly  shown  on  two 
or  three  occasions  by  the  facility  with  which 
whole  regiments  or  brigades  have  been  sacrificed 
in  carrying  a  single  position.  With  ordinary 
troops,  only  a  certain  amount  can  be  deliberately 
and  openly  exacted  of  any  one  corps.  The  high- 
est heights  of  devotion  are  often  beyond  their 
reach.  But  if  it  serves  the  purposes  of  a  Prussian 
commander  to  have  all  the  cost  of  an  assault  fall 
on  one  regiment,  he  apparently  finds  not  the 
slightest  difficulty  in  getting  it  to  march  to  certain 
destruction,  and  not  blindly  as  peasants  march, 
but  as  men  of  education,  who  understand  the 
whole  thing,  but  having  made  it  for  this  occasion 
their  business  to  die,  do  it  like  any  other  duty  of 
life — not  hilariously  or  enthusiastically  or  reck- 
lessly, but  calmly  and  energetically,  as  they  study 
or  manufacture  or  plough.  They  get  themselves 
killed  not  one  particle  more  than  is  necessary,  but 
also  not  one  particle  less. 


W  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

A  nation  organized  in  this  way  is  a  new  phe- 
nomenon, and  is  worth  attentive  study.  It  gives 
one  a  glimpse  of  possibilities  in  the  future  of 
modern  civilization  of  which  few  people  have 
hitherto  dreamed,  and  it  must  be  confessed  that 
the  prospect  is  not  altogether  pleasing.  We  have 
been  flattering  ourselves — in  Anglo-Saxondom,  at 
least — for  many  years  back  that  all  social  progress 
was  to  be  hereafter  in  the  direction  of  greater  in- 
dividualism, and  among  us,  certainly,  this  view 
has  derived  abundant  support  from  observed  facts. 
But  it  is  now  apparent  that  there  is  a  tendency  at 
work,  which  appears  to  grow  stronger  and  stronger 
every  day,  toward  combination  in  all  the  work  of 
life.  It  is  specially  observable  in  the  efforts  of 
the  working  classes  to  better  their  condition;  it 
still  more  observable  in  the  efforts  of  capital  to 
fortify  itself  against  them  and  against  the  public 
at  large ;  and  there  is,  perhaps,  nothing  in  which 
more  rapid  advances  have  been  made  of  late  years 
than  in  the  power  of  organization.  The  working 
of  the  great  railroads  and  hotels  and  manufac- 
tories, of  the  trades  unions,  of  the  co-operative 
associations,  and  of  the  monster  armies  now  main- 
tained by  three  or  four  powers,  are  all  illustra- 
tions of  it.  The  growth  of  power  is,  of  course,  the 
result  of  the  growth  of  intelligence,  and  it  is  in  the 
ratio  of  the  growth  of  intelligence. 


CULTURE  AND    WAR  15 

Prussia  lias  got  the  start  of  all  other  countries  by 
combining  the  whole  nation  in  one  vast  organiza- 
tion for  purposes  of  offence  and  defence.  Hitherto 
nations  have  simply  subscribed  toward  the  main- 
tenance of  armies  and  concerned  themselves  little 
about  their  internal  economy  and  administration  ; 
but  the  Prussians  have  converted  themselves  into 
an  army,  and  have  been  enabled  to  do  so  solely  by 
subjecting  themselves  to  a  long  process  of  elab- 
orate training,  which  has  changed  the  national 
character.  When  reduced  to  the  lowest  point  of 
humiliation  after  the  battle  of  Jena,  they  went  to 
work  and  absolutely  built  up  the  nation  afresh. 
We  may  not  altogether  like  the  result.  To  large 
numbers  of  people  the  Prussian  type  of  character 
is  not  a  pleasing  one,  nor  Prussian  society  an  ob- 
ject otJ  unmixed,  admiration,  and  there  is  some- 
thing^ horrible  in  n.  whole  people's  passing  their 
best  years  learning  how  to  kiL[.  But  we  cannot 
get  over  the  fact  that  the  Prussian  man  is  like- 
ly to  furnish,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  the 
model  to  other  civilized  countries,  until  such  time 
as  some  other  nation  has  so  successfully  imitated 
him  as  to  produce  his  like. 

Let  those  who  believe,  as  Mr.  Wendell  Phillips 
says  that  he  believes,  that  "  the  best  education  a 
man  can  get  is  what  he  gets  in  picking  up  a  liv- 
ing,"  and  that  universities  are  humbugs,  and  that 


16  REFLECTION'S  AND  COMMENTS 

from  the  newspapers  and  lyceum  lecture  the  citizen 
can  always  get  as  much  information  on  all  sub- 
jects, human  and  divine,  as  is  good  for  him  or  the 
State,  take  a  look  at  the  Prussian  soldier  as  he 
marches  past  in  his  ill-fitting  uniform  and  his 
leather  helmet.  First  of  all,  we  observe  that  he 
smokes  a  great  deal.  According  to  some  of  us,  the 
"  tobacco  demon  "  ought  by  this  time  to  have  left 
him  a  thin,  puny,  hollow-eyed  fellow,  with  trem- 
bling knees  and  palpitating  heart  and  listless  gait, 
with  shaking  hands  and  an  intense  craving  for  ar- 
dent spirits.  You  perceive,  however,  that  a  burlier, 
broader-shouldered,  ruddier,  brighter-eyed,  and 
heartier-looking  man  you  never  set  eyes  on  ;  and 
as  he  swings  along  in  column,  with  his  rifle,  knap- 
sack, seventy  rounds  of  ammunition,  blanket,  and 
saucepan,  you  must  confess  you  cannot  help  ac- 
knowledging that  you  feel  sorry  for  any  equal 
body  of  men  in  the  world  with  which  that  column 
may  get  into  "  a  difficulty."  He  drinks,  too,  and 
drinks  a  great  deal,  both  of  strong  beer  and  strong 
wine,  and  has  always  done  so,  and  all  his  family 
friends  do  it,  and  have  only  heard  of  teetotalism 
through  the  newspapers,  and,  if  you  asked  him  to 
confine  himself  to  water,  would  look  on  you  as  an 
amiable  idiot.  Neverthless,  you  never  see  him 
drunk,  nor  does  his  beer  produce  on  him  that  utterly 
bemuddling  or  brain-paralyzing  effect  which  is  so 


CULTURE  AND    WAR  17 

powerfully  described  by  our  friend  Mr.  James 
Parton  as  produced  on  him  by  lager-bier,  in  that 
inquiry  into  the  position  of  "  The  Coming  Man " 
toward  wine,  some  copies  of  which,  we  see,  he  is 
trying  to  distribute  among  the  field-officers.  On 
the  contrary,  he  is,  on  the  whole,  a  very  sober 
man,  and  very  powerful  thinker,  and  very  remark- 
able scholar.  There  is  no  field  of  human  knowl- 
edge which  he  has  not  been  among  the  first  to  ex- 
plore ;  no  heights  of  speculation  which  he  has  not 
scaled ;  no  problem  of  the  world  over  which  he  is 
not  fruitfully  toiling.  Moreover,  his  thoroughness 
is  the  envy  of  the  students  of  all  other  countries, 
and  his  hatred  of  sham  scholarship  and  slipshod 
generalization  is  intense. 

But  what  with  the  tobacco  and  the  beer,  and  the 
scholarship  and  his  university  education,  you  might 
naturally  infer  that  he  must  be  a  kid-glove  soldier, 
and  a  little  too  nice  and  dreamy  and  speculative 
for  the  actual  work  of  life.  But  you  never  were 
more  mistaken.  He  is  leaving  behind  him  some 
of  the  finest  manufactories  and  best-tilled  fields 
in  the  world.  Moreover,  he  is  an  admirable  painter 
and,  as  all  the  world  knows,  an  almost  unequalled 
musician ;  or  if  you  want  proof  of  his  genius  for 
business,  look  at  the  speed  and  regularity  with 
which  he  and  his  comrades  have  transported  them- 
selves to  the  Rhine,  and  see  the .  perfection  of  all 


18  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

the  arrangements  of  his  regiment.  And  now,  if 
you  think  his  "  bad  habits,"  his  daily  violations  of 
your  notions  of  propriety,  have  diminished  his 
power  of  meeting  death  calmly — that  noblest  of 
products  of  culture — you  have  only  to  follow  him 
up  as  far  as  Sedan  and  see  whether  he  ever 
flinches  ;  whether  you  have  ever  read  or  heard  of  a 
soldier  out  of  whom  more  marching  and  fighting 
and  dying,  and  not  flighty,  boisterous  dying  either, 
could  be  got. 

Now,  we  can  very  well  understand  why  people 
should  be  unwilling  to  see  the  Prussian  military 
system  spread  into  other  countries,  or  even  be  pre- 
served where  it  is.  It  is  a  pitiful  thing  to  have 
the  men  of  a  whole  civilized  nation  spending  so 
much  time  out  of  the  flower  of  their  years  learning 
jjo  Sill  other  men ;  and  the  lesson  to  be  drawn  from 
the  recent  Prussian  successes  is  assuredly  not  that 
every  country  ought  to  have  an  army  like  the 
Prussian  army,  though  we  confess  that,  if  great 
armies  must  be  kept  up,  there  is  no  better  model 
than  the  Prussian.  The  lesson  is  that,  whether 
you  want  him  for  war  or  peace,  there  is  no^waj  in 
which  you  can  ^et  so  much  out  of  a  man  as  by 
training  him,  and  training  him  not  in  pieces  but  the 
whole  of  him ;  and  that  the  trainejjmen,  other  things 
being  equal,  are  pretty  sure  in  the  loiip;  run  to  be  the 
masters  of  the  world. 


THE  COMPAEATIVE  MORALITY  OF 
NATIONS 

WE  had,  four  or  five  weeks  ago,  a  few  words  of 
controversy  with  the  Christian  Union  as  to  the 
comparative  morality  of  the  Prussians  and  Amer- 
icans, or,  rather,  their  comparative  religiousness — 
meaning  by  religiousness  a  disposition  "  to  serve 
others  and  live  as  in  God's  sight ; "  in  other 
words,  unselfishness  and  spirituality.  We  let  it 
drop,  from  the  feeling  that  the  question  whether 
the  Americans  or  Prussians  were  the  better  men 
was  only  a  part,  and  a  very  small  part,  of  the 
larger  question.  How  do  we  discover  which  of 
any  two  nations  is  the  purer  in  its  life  or  in  its 
aims  ?  and,  is  not  any  judgment  we  form  about  it 
likely  to  be  very  defective,  owing  to  the  inevitable 
incompleteness  of  our  premises?  We  are  not 
now  going  to  try  to  fix  the  place  of  either  Prussia 
or  the  United  States  in  the  scale  of  morality,  but 
to  point  out  some  reasons  why  all  comparisons 
between  them  should  be  made  by  Americans  with 
exceeding  care  and  humility.  There  is  hardly 


30  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

any  field  of  inquiry  in  which  even  the  best-in- 
formed man  is  likely  to  fall  into  so  many  errors ; 
first,  because  there  is  no  field  in  which  the  vision 
is  so  much  affected  by  prejudices  of  education 
and  custom ;  and,  secondly,  because  there  is  none 
in  which  the  things  we  see  are  so  likely  to  create 
erroneous  impressions  about  the  things  we  do  not 
see.  But  we  may  add  that  it  is  a  field  which  no 
intelligent  and  sensible  man  ever  explores  without 
finding  his  charity  greatly  stimulated. 

Let  us  give  some  illustrations  of  the  errors  into 
which  people  are  apt  to  fall  in  it.  Count  Gas- 
parin,  a  French  Protestant,  and  as  spiritually 
minded  a  man  as  breathed,  once  talking  with  an 
American  friend  expressed  in  strong  terms  his 
sense  of  the  pain  it  caused  him  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
should  have  been  at  the  theatre  when  he  was 
killed,  not,  the  friend  found,  because  he  objected 
in  the  least  to  theatre-going,  but  because  it  was 
the  evening  of  Good  Friday — a  day  which  the 
Continental  Calvinists  "keep"  with  great  solem- 
nity, but  to  which  American  non-episcopal  Prot- 
estants pay  no  attention  whatever.  Count  Gas- 
parin,  on  the  other  hand,  would  have  no  hesitation 
in  taking  a  ride  on  Sunday,  or  going  to  a  public 
promenade  after  church  hours,  and,  from  seeing 
him  there,  his  American  friend  would  draw  de- 
ductions just  as  unfavorable  to  the  Count's  relig- 


THE  COMPARATIVE  MORALITY  OF  NATIONS      21 

ious  character  as  the   Count  himself   drew  with 
regard  to  Mr.  Lincoln's. 

Take,  again,  the  question  of  drinking  beer  and 
wine.  There  is  a  large  body  of  very  excellent  men 
in  America  who,  from  a  long  contemplation  of  the 
evils  wrought  by  excessive  indulgence  in  intoxicat- 
ing drinks,  have  worked  themselves  up  to  a  state 
of  mind  about  all  use  of  such  drinks  which  is 
really  discreditable  to  reasonable  beings,  leads  to 
the  most  serious  platform  excesses,  and  is  per- 
fectly incomprehensible  to  Continental  Europeans. 
To  the  former,  the  drinking  even  of  lager  beer 
connotes,  as  the  logicians  say,  ever  so  many  other 
vices — grossness  and  sensuality  of  nature,  extrava- 
gance, indifference  to  home  pleasures,  repugnance 
to  steady  industry,  and  a  disregard  of  the  precepts 
of  religion  and  morality.  To  many  of  them  a  Ger- 
man workman,  and  his  wife  and  children,  sitting 
in  a  beer-garden  on  a  summer's  evening,  which  to 
European  moralists  and  economists  is  one  of  the 
most  pleasing  sights  in  the  world,  is  a  revolting 
spectacle,  which  calls  for  the  interference  of  the 
police.  Now,  if  you  go  to  a  beer-garden  in  Berlin 
you  may,  any  Sunday  afternoon,  see  doctors  of 
divinity — none  of  your  rationalists — but  doctors 
of  real  divinity,  to  whom  American  theologians 
go  to  be  taught,  doing  this  very  thing,  and,  what 
is  worse,  smoking  pipes.  An  American  who  ap- 


23  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

plied  to  this  the  same  course  of  reasoning  which 
he  would  apply  to  a  similar  scene  in  America, 
would  simply  be  guilty  of  outrageous  folly.  If  he 
argued  from  it  that  the  German  doctor  was  selfish, 
or  did  not  "  live  as  in  the  sight  of  God,"  the  whole 
process  would  be  a  model  of  absurdity. 

Foreigners  have  drawn,  on  the  other  hand,  from 
the  American  "  diligence  in  business,"  conclusions 
with  regard  to  American  character  far  more  un- 
complimentary than  those  the  Christian  Union  has 
expressed  with  regard  to  the  Prussians.  There  are 
not  a  few  religious  and  moral  and  cultivated  cir- 
cles in  Europe  in  which  the  suggestion  that  Amer- 
icans, as  a  nation,  were  characterized  by  thought- 
fulness  for  others  and  a  sense  of  God's  presence 
would  be  received  with  derisive  laughter,  owing  to 
the  application  to  the  phenomena  of  American  so- 
ciety of  the  process  of  reasoning  on  which,  we  fear, 
the  Union  relies.  Down  to  the  war,  so  candid  and 
perspicacious  a  man  as  John  Stuart  Mill  might 
have  been  included  in  this  class.  The  earlier 
editions  of  his  "Elements  of  Political  Economy" 
contained  a  contemptuous  statement  that  one  sex 
in  America  was  entirely  given  up  to  "  dollar-hunt- 
ing "  and  the  other  to  "  breeding  dollar-hunters." 
In  other  words,  he  held  that  the  American  people 
were  plunged  in  the  grossest  materialism,  and  he 
doubtless  based  this  opinion  on  that  intense  appli- 


THE  COMPARATIVE  MORALITY  OF  NATIONS      23 

cation  of  the  men  to  commercial  and  industrial 
pursuits  which  we  see  all  around  us,  which  no 
church  finds  fault  with,  but  which,  we  know,  bad  as 
its  effects  are  on  art  and  literature,  really  coexists 
with  great  generosity,  sympathy,  public  spirit,  and 
ideality. 

Take,  again,  the  matter  of  chastity,  on  which 
the  Union  touched.  We  grant  at  the  outset  that 
wherever  you  have  classes,  the  women  of  the  lower 
class  suffer  more  or  less  from  the  men  of  the  upper 
class,  and  anybody  who  says  that  seductions,  ac- 
complished through  the  effect  on  female  vanity  of 
the  addresses  of  "  superiors  in  station,"  while  al- 
most unknown  here,  are  very  numerous  in  Europe, 
would  find  plenty  of  facts  to  support  him.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  an  attempt  made  to  persuade  a 
Frenchman  that  the  familiar  intercourse  which  the 
young  people  of  both  sexes  in  this  country  enjoy 
was  generally  pure,  would  fail  in  ninety-nine  cases 
out  of  a  hundred.  That  it  should  be  pure  is  op- 
posed to  all  his  experience  of  human  nature,  both 
male  and  female  ;  and  the  result  of  your  argument 
with  him  would  be  that  he  would  conclude  either 
that  you  were  an  extraordinarily  simple  person,  or 
took  him  for  one. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  believe  the  German,  who 
thinks  nothing  of  drinking  as  much  wine  or  beer 
as  he  cares  for,  draws  from  the  conduct  of  the 


34  REFLECTION'S  AND  COMMENTS 

American  young  woman  whom  he  sees  abroad, 
and  from  what  he  reads  in  our  papers  about 
"free  love,"  Indiana  divorces,  abortion,  and  what 
not,  conclusions  with  regard  to  American  chastity 
very  different  from  those  of  the  Union  ;  and,  if  you 
sought  to  meet  him  in  discussion,  he  would  over- 
whelm you  with  facts  and  cases  which,  looked  at 
apart  from  the  general  tenor  of  American  life  and 
manners,  it  would  be  very  hard  to  dispose  of.  He 
would  say,  for  instance,  that  we  are  not,  perhaps, 
guilty  of  as  many  violations  of  the  marriage  vows 
as  Europeans ;  but  that  we  make  it  so  light  a  vow 
that,  instead  of  violating  it,  we  get  it  abrogated, 
and  then  follow  our  will ;  and  then  he  would  come 
down  on  us  with  boarding-house  and  hotel  life, 
and  other  things  of  the  same  kind,  which  might 
make  us  despise  him,  but  would  make  it  a  little 
difficult  to  get  rid  of  him.  , 

There  is  probably  no  minor  point  of  manners 
which  does  more  to  create  unfavorable  impres- 
sions of  Europeans  among  the  best  class  of  Amer- 
icans— morally  the  best,  we  mean — than  the  im- 
portance attached  by  the  former  to  their  eating 
and  drinking ;  while  there  is  nothing  which  does 
more  to  spread  in  Europe  impressions  unfavor- 
able to  American  civilization  than  the  indifference 
of  Americans,  and,  we  may  add,  as  regards  the 
progressive  portion  of  American  society — culti- 


THE  COMPARATIVE  MORALITY  OF  NATIONS      35 

vated  indifference — to  the  quality  of  their  meals 
and  the  time  of  eating  them.  In  no  European 
country  is  moderate  enjoyment  of  the  pleasures 
of  the  table  considered  incompatible  with  high 
moral  aims,  or  even  a  sincerely  religious  char- 
acter ;  but  a  man  to  whom  his  dinner  was  of  seri- 
ous importance  would  find  his  position  in  an 
assembly  of  American  reformers  very  precarious. 
The  German  or  Frenchman  or  Englishman,  in- 
deed, treats  a  man's  views  of  food,  and  his  dispo- 
sition or  indisposition  to  eat  it  in  company  with 
his  fellows  as  an  indication  of  his  place  in  civili- 
zation. Savages  love  to  eat  alone,  and  it  has  been 
observed  in  partially  civilized  communities  relaps- 
ing into  barbarism,  that  one  of  the  first  indica- 
tions of  their  decline  was  the  abandonment  of  reg- 
ular meals  on  tables,  and  a  tendency  on  the  part 
of  the  individuals  to  retire  to  secret  places  with 
their  victuals.  This  is  probably  a  remnant  of  the 
old  aboriginal  instinct  which  we  still  see  in  do- 
mesticated dogs,  and  was,  doubtless,  implanted 
for  the  protection  of  the  species  in  times  when 
everybody  looked  on  his  neighbor's  bone  with  a 
hungry  eye,  and  the  man  with  the  strong  hand 
was  apt  to  have  the  fullest  stomach.  Accordingly, 
there  is  in  Europe,  and  indeed  everywhere,  a  ten- 
dency to  regard  the  growth  of  a  delicacy  in  eating, 
and  close  attention  to  the  time  and  manner  of 


26  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

serving  meals  and  their  cookery,  and  the  use  of 
them  as  promoters  of  social  intercourse,  as  an  in- 
dication of  moral  as  well  as  material  progress. 
To  a  large  number  of  people  here,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  bolting  of  food— ten-minute  dinners,  for 
instance — and  general  unconsciousness  of  "what 
is  on  the  table,"  is  a  sign  of  preoccupation  with 
serious  things.  It  may  be  ;  but  the  German  love 
of  food  is  not  necessarily  a  sign  of  grossness,  and 
that  "  overfed "  appearance,  of  which  the  Union 
spoke,  is  not  necessarily  a  sign  of  inefficiency,  any 
more  than  leanness  or  cadaverousness  is  a  sign  of 
efficiency.  There  is  certainly  some  power  of  hard 
work  in  King  "William's  army,  and,  indeed,  we 
could  hardly  point  to  a  better  illustration  of  the 
truth,  that  all  the  affairs  of  men,  whether  political, 
social,  or  religious,  depend  for  their  condition 
largely  on  the  state  of  the  digestion. 

Honesty,  by  which  we  mean  that  class  of  vir- 
tues which  Cicero  includes  in  the  term  bona  fides, 
has,  to  a  considerable  extent,  owing,  we  think,  to 
the  peculiar  humanitarian  character  which  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  country  have  given  to  the  work 
of  reform,  been  subordinated  in  the  United  States 
to  brotherly  kindness.  Now,  this  right  to  arrange 
the  virtues  according  to  a  scale  of  its  own,  is  some- 
thing which  not  only  every  age,  but  every  nation, 
has  claimed,  and,  accordingly,  we  find  that  each 


THE  COMPARATIVE  MORALITY  OF  NATIONS      27 

community,  in  forming  its  judgment  of  a  man's 
character,  gives  a  different  degree  of  weight  to 
different  features  of  it.  Keeping  a  mistress  would 
probablj,  anywhere  in  the  United  States,  damage 
a  man's  reputation  far  more  seriously  than  fraud- 
uJent  bankruptcy ;  while  horse-stealing,  which  in 
New  England  would  be  a  comparatively  trifling 
offence,  out  in  Montana  is  a  far  fouler  thing  than 
murder.  But  in  the  European  scale,  honesty  still 
occupies  the  first  place.  Bearing  this  in  mind, 
it  is  worth  any  man's  while  who  proposes  to  pass 
judgment  on  the  morality  of  any  foreign  country, 
to  consider  what  is  the  impression  produced  on 
foreign  opinion  about  American  morality  by  the 
story  of  the  Erie  Railroad,  by  the  career  of  Fisk, 
by  the  condition  of  the  judicial  bench  in  the  com- 
mercial capital  of  the  country,  by  the  charges  of 
corruption  brought  against  such  men  as  Trumbull 
and  Fesseuden  at  the  time  of  the  impeachment 
trial ;  by  the  comically  prominent  and  beloved 
position  which  Butler  has  held  for  some  years  in 
our  best  moral  circles,  and  by  the  condition  of  the 
civil  service. 

The  truth  is  that  it  is  almost  impossible  for 
anybody  to  compare  one  nation  with  another 
fairly,  unless  he  possesses  complete  familiarity 
with  the  national  life  of  both,  and  therefore  can 
distinguish  isolated  facts  from  symptomatic  facts. 


28  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

The  reason  why  some  of  the  phenomena  of  Amer- 
ican society  which  shock  foreigners  greatly,  do 
not  shock  even  the  best  Americans  so  much,  is  not 
that  the  latter  have  become  hardened  to  them — 
though  this  counts  for  something — but  that  they 
know  of  various  counteracting  and  compensating 
phenomena  which  prevent,  or  are  sure  to  prevent, 
them  in  the  long  run  from  doing  the  mischief 
which  they  seem  to  threaten.  In  other  words, 
they  understand  the  checks  and  balances  of  their 
society  as  well  as  its  tendencies.  Anybody  who 
considers  these  things  will  be  careful  how  he  de- 
nounces people  whose  manners  differ  from  his  own 
for  want  of  spirituality  or  morality,  and  we  may 
add  that  any  historical  student  engaged  in  com- 
paring the  morality  of  the  age  in  which  he  lives 
with  that  of  any  other  age  which  he  knows  only 
through  chronicles,  will  do  well  to  exercise  the 
same  caution  for  the  same  reasons. 


THE  "COMIC-PAPEK"  QUESTION 

IT  is  recorded  of  a  patriotic  member  of  the 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  that  after  hearing 
from  the  Special  Commissioner  of  the  Revenue  an 
elaborate  and  strongly  fortified  argument  which 
made  a  deep  impression  on  the  committee  in 
favor  of  a  reduction  of  the  whiskey  tax,  on  the 
ground  that  the  then  rate,  two  dollars  a  gallon, 
could  not  be  collected — he  closed  the  debate,  and 
earned  the  majority  with  him,  by  declaring  that, 
for  his  part,  he  never  would  admit  that  a  gov- 
ernment which  had  just  suppressed  the  greatest 
rebellion  the  world  ever  saw,  could  not  collect 
two  dollars  a  gallon  on  whiskey.  A  large  por- 
tion of  the  public  approaches  the  comic-paper 
problem  in  much  the  same  spirit  in  which  this 
gentleman  approached  the  whiskey  tax.  The 
country  has  plenty  of  humor,  and  plenty  of  humor- 
ists. It  fills  whole  pages  of  numerous  magazines 
and  whole  columns  of  numerous  newspapers  with 
really  good  jokes  every  month.  It  supplies  great 
numbers  of  orators  and  lecturers  and  diners-out 


30  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

with  "little  stories,"  which,  of  their  kind,  cannot 
be  surpassed.  There  is  probably  no  country  in  the 
world,  too,  in  which  there  is  so  much  constantly 
going  on  of  the  fun  which  does  not  need  local 
knowledge  or  coloring  to  be  enjoyed,  but  will  bear 
exportation,  and  be  recognized  as  the  genuine 
article  in  any  English-speaking  part  of  the  world. 
Moreover,  there  is  in  the  real  American  stories  an 
amount  of  suggestiveness,  a  power  of  "connota- 
tion," which  cannot  be  affirmed  of  those  of  any 
other  country.  A  very  large  number  of  them  are 
real  contributions  to  sociology,  and  of  considerable 
value  too.  Besides  all  this,  the  United  States 
possesses,  what  no  other  nation  does,  several  pro- 
fessed jesters — that  is,  men  who  are  not  only  hu- 
morous in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term,  but 
make  a  business  of  cracking  jokes,  and  are  recog- 
nized as  persons  whose  duty  it  is  to  take  a  jocose 
view  of  things.  Artemus  Ward,  Josh  Billings, 
and  Mark  Twain,  and  the  Rev.  P.  V.  Nasby,  and 
one  or  two  others  of  less  note,  are  a  kind  of  per- 
sonages which  no  other  society  has  produced,  and 
could  in  no  other  society  attain  equal  celebrity. 
In  fact,  when  one  examines  the  total  annual  pro- 
duction of  jokes  in  the  United  States,  one  who 
knows  nothing  of  the  past  history  of  the  comic- 
paper  question  can  hardly  avoid  the  conclusion 
that  such  periodicals  would  run  serious  risk  of 


THE  "COMIC-PAPER"    QUESTION  31 

being  overwhelmed  with  "good  things"  and  dy- 
ing of  plethora.  Yet  the  melancholy  fact  is  that 
several — indeed,  all  that  have  been  started — have 
died  of  inanition ;  that  is,  of  the  absence  of  jokes. 
The  last  one  says  it  offered  all  the  great  humor- 
ists in  the  country  plenty  of  work,  and  their  own 
terms  as  to  pay,  and  failed  to  enlist  them,  and  the 
chance  jokes  apparently  were  neither  numerous 
enough  nor  good  enough  to  keep  it  afloat. 

Now  what  is  the  cause  of  this  disheartening 
state  of  things  ?  Why  can  the  United  States  not 
have  a  comic  paper  of  their  own?  The  answers 
to  this  question  vary,  though  of  course  not  greatly. 
They  are  mostly  given  in  the  shape  of  a  history, 
with  appropriate  comments,  of  the  unsuccessful 
attempts  made  to  establish  comic  papers ;  one 
went  down  because  it  did  not  sympathize  with  the 
liberal  and  humane  movements  of  the  day,  and 
laughed  in  the  pro-slavery  interest ;  another,  be- 
cause it  never  succeeded  in  getting  hold  of  a  good 
draughtsman  for  its  engravings;  and  another 
venture  failed,  among  other  mistakes,  we  are  told, 
because  it  made  fun  of  the  New  York  Tribune. 
The  explanation  which  finds  most  general  favor 
with  the  public  is,  that  while  in  England,  France, 
and  Germany  "  the  great  dailies "  confine  them- 

• 

selves  to  the  serious  treatment  of  the  topics  of  the 
day,  and  thus  leave  room  for  the  labors  of  Punch, 


33  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

or  Kladderadatsch,  or  Charivari,  in  America  all 
papers  do  their  own  joking ;  and,  if  it  seems  desir- 
able to  take  a  comic  view  of  anything  or  anybody, 
take  it  on  the  spot  in  their  own  columns. 

Hence  any  paper  which  starts  on  a  comic  basis 
alone  meets  with  rivals  in  all  its  sober-minded  con- 
temporaries, and  comes  to  grief.  The  difficulty  it 
has  to  contend  with  is,  in  short,  very  like  that  which 
the  professional  laundress  or  baker  has  to  contend 
with,  owing  to  the  fact  that  families  are  accus- 
tomed to  do  their  own  washing  and  bake  their 
own  bread.  And,  indeed,  it  is  not  unlike  that  with 
which  professional  writers  of  all  kinds  have  to 
contend,  owing  to  the  readiness  of  clergymen, 
lawyers,  and  professors  to  write,  while  doing 
something  else.  An  ordinary  daily  paper  supplies, 
besides  its  serious  disquisitions,  fun  enough  for 
one  average  household — sometimes  in  single  jokes, 
and  sometimes  in  the  shape  of  "  sparkle "  or 
"  spiciness  "  in  grave  articles.  Often  enough  it  is 
very  poor  stuff,  but  it  amuses  people,  without 
turning  their  attention  away  from  the  sober  work 
of  life,  which  is  the  only  way  in  which  the  vast 
body  of  Americans  are  willing  to  be  amused. 
Newspaper  comedians  have  here,  what  they  would 
not  have  in  London,  a  chance  of  letting  off  a  joke 
once  a  day,  and  six  or  seven  jokes  a  week  is  more 
than  any  comic  paper  is  willing  or  able  to  take 


THE  "COMIC-PAPER"   QUESTION  33 

from  any  one  contributor,  partly  owing  to  the  need 
of  variety  in  a  paper  given  wholly  to  humor,  and 
partly  owing  to  want  of  space.  Anybody,  there- 
fore, who  has  humor  for  sale  finds  a  readier  mar- 
ket among  the  dailies  or  magazines,  and  a  far 
wider  circle  of  readers,  than  he  would  in  any  comic 
paper. 

The  charge  that  our  comic  papers  have  generally 
opposed  the  friends  of  liberty  and  progress — that 
is  the  most  intelligent  and  appreciative  portion  of 
the  public — is  quite  true,  but  it  does  not  go  far  to 
account  for  their  failure.  Punch  has  done  this 
steadily  ever  since  its  establishment,  without  seri- 
ous injury.  No  good  cause  has  ever  received 
much  backing  from  it  till  it  became  the  cause  of 
the  majority,  or  indeed.  hn,s  escnpefl  bein<*  made 
the  butt  of  its  ridicule  ;  and  we  confess  we  doubt 
whetiier  "the  friends  "of  progress,"  using  the  term 
in  what  we  may  call  its  technical  sense,  were  ever 
a  sufficiently  large  body,  or  had  ever  sufficient 
love  of  fun,  to  make  their  disfavor  of  any  great 
consequence.  Most  people  in  the  United  States 
who  are  very  earnestly  enlisted  in  the  service  of 
"  a  cause  "  look  on  all  ridicule  as  "  wicked,"  and 
regard  with  great  suspicion  anybody  who  indulges 
in  it,  whether  he  makes  them  the  object  of  it  or 
not.  They  bore  with  it,  when  turned  against 
slavery,  from  one  or  two  distinguished  humorists, 


34  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

because  its  effectiveness  was  plain  ;  but  we  doubt 
whether  any  man  who  had  the  knack  of  seeing 
the  ludicrous  side  of  things  ever  really  won  their 
confidence,  partly  owing  to  their  own  natural  want 
of  humor,  and  partly  to  their  careful  cultivation 
of  a  habit  of  solemnity  of  mind  as  the  only  thing 
that  can  make  an  "  advanced  "  position  really  ten- 
able, to  say  nothing  of  comfortable.  The  causes 
of  all  successes,  as  of  all  failures,  in  the  literary 
world  are  of  course  various,  and  no  doubt  there  is 
a  good  deal  of  truth  in  all  that  has  been  said  in 
solution  of  the  comic-paper  problem.  American 
humorists  of  the  best  class  can  find  something 
"better  or  more  lucrative  to  do  than  writing  for  a 
comic  paper ;  .while  the  poor  American  humorists, 
like  the  poor  humorists  of  all  countries,  are  coarse 
and  vulgar,  even  where  they  are  not  stupid. 

But  there  is  one  striking  "difference  between 
American  society  and  those  societies  in  which 
comic  papers  have  succeeded  which  not  only  goes 
a  good  way  to  explain  their  failure  here,  but  puts 
a  better  face  on  some  of  their  efforts — such  as 
their  onslaughts  on  the  friends  of  progress — than 
they  seem  to  wear  at  first  sight.  To  furnish  suf- 
ficient food  for  fun  to  keep  a  comic  paper  afloat,  a 
country  must  supply  a  good  many  strong  social 
contrasts  for  the  professional  joker  to  play  upon, 
and  must  have  a  large  amount  of  reverence  for 


THE  "  COMIC-PAPER"   QUESTION  35 

social  distinctions  and  dignities  for  him  to  shock. 
Two -thirds  of  the  zest  with  which  foreign  comic 

-— 

papers  are  read  is  due  to  the  fact  that  they  cari-(/0^  j, 
cature  persons  or  social  circles  with  which  the 
mass  of  their  readers  are  not  thoroughly  familiar, 
and  whose  habits  and  ways  of  looking  at  things 
they  do  not  share  or  only  partly  share.  A  good 
deal  of  the  fun  in  Punch,  for  instance,  consists  in 
making  costermongers  or  cabmen  quarrel  with  the 
upper  classes,  in  ridicule  of  Jeames's  attempts  to 
imitate  his  master,  of  Brown's  efforts  to  scrape  ac- 
quaintance with  a  peer,  of  the  absurd  figure  cut  by 
the  "  cad  "  in  the  hunting-field,  and  of  the  folly  of 
the  city  clerk  in  trying  to  dress  and  behave  like  a 
guardsman.  In  short,  the  point  of  a  great  num- 
ber of  its  best  jokes  is  made  by  bringing  different 
social  strata  into  sharp  comparison.  The  pecul- 
iarities of  Irishmen  and  Scotchmen  also  furnish 
rich  materials  to  the  caricaturist.  He  never  tires 
of  illustrating  the  blunders  and  impudence  of  the 
one  and  the  hot  patriotism  and  niggardliness  of  the 
other.  The  Irish  Highlander,  who  denies,  in  a 
rich  brogue,  that  any  Irish  are  ever  admitted  into 
his  regiment,  and  the  cannie  burgher  from  Aber- 
deen, who,  on  his  return  home  from  a  visit  to 
London,  says  it's  an  "  awf u'  dear  place  ;  that  he 
hadna'  been  twa  oors  in  the  toon  when  bang  went 
saxpence,"  are  types  which  raise  a  laugh  all  over 


36  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

the  United  Kingdom,  and  all  because,  again,  they 
furnish  materials  for  ludicrous  contrast  which 
everybody  is  capable  of  appreciating. 

Neither  the  Irishman,  Scotchman,  nor  English- 
' 'man,  as  such,  can  be  made  to  yield  much  fun,  if 
Li     *     sketched  alone.     It  is  when  ranged  alongside  of 
each  other,  and  measured  by  the  English  middle- 
class  standard  of  propriety,  that  they  become  en- 
tertaining. 

In  a  homogeneous  society,  like  that  of  the  United 
States,  none  of  this  material  is  to  be  found.  The 
New  Englander,  to  be  sure,  furnishes  a  type  which 
differs  from  the  Middle-States  man  or  the  South- 
erner or  Westerner,  but  none  of  them  differs 
enough  to  make  him  worth  caricaturing.  His 
speech,  his  dress,  his  modes  of  acting  and  think- 
ing so  nearly  resemble  those  of  his  neighbors  in 
other  parts  of  the  country  that  after  the  comic 
writer  or  draughtsman  had  done  his  best  or  his 
worst  upon  him,  it  would  remain  still  a  little  doubt- 
ful where  the  joke  came  in.  The  Irishman,  and 
especially  the  New  York  Irish  voter,  and  his  sister 
Bridget,  the  cook,  have  during  the  past  ten  years 
rendered  more  or  less  service  as  butts  for  carica- 
turists, but  they  are  rapidly  wearing  out.  They  are 
not  many-sided  persons  at  best,  and  their  charac- 
teristics have  become  associated  in  the  American 
mind  with  so  much  that  is  uncomfortable  and  re- 


THE  "  COMIC-PAPER"   QUESTION  37 

pulsive  in  domestic  and  political  life,  that  it  be- 
comes increasingly  difficult  to  get  a  native  to  laugh 
at  them.  It  must  be  confessed,  too,  that  the  Irish 
in  America  have  signally  belied  the  poet's  asser- 
tion, "  Ccelum  non  animam  mutant  qui  trans  mare 
currunt"  There  is  nothing  more  striking  in  their 
condition  than  the  almost  complete  disappearance 
from  their  character,  at  least  in  its  outward  mani- 
festations, of  the  vivacity,  politeness,  kindliness, 
comical  blundering  impetuosity,  and  double-sight- 
edness,  out  of  which  the  Irishman  of  the  stage 
and  Jo  Miller's  Irishman  who  made  all  the  bulls 
were  manufactured  in  the  last  century.  Of  the 
other  nationalities  we  need  hardly  speak,  as  the 
English  -  speaking  public  knows  little  of  them,  i 
although  the  German  Jew  is  perhaps  the  most  r  - ., , ( 
durable  material  the  comic  writer  has  ever  worked 
on. 

The  absence  of  class  distinctions  here,  too,  and 
the  complete  democratization  of  institutions  during 
the  last  forty  years,  have  destroyed  the  reverence 
and  sense  of  mystery  by  shocking  which  the  Euro- 
pean comic  paper  produces  some  of  its  most  tick- 
ling effects.  Gladstone  and  Disraeli  figuring  as 
pugilists  in  the  ring,  for  instance,  diverts  the  Eng- 
lish public,  because  it  gives  a  very  smart  blow  to 
the  public  sense  of  fitness,  and  makes  a  strong 
impression  of  absurdity,  these  two  men  being  to 


38  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

the  English  public  real  dignitaries,  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  word,  and  under  the  strongest  obliga- 
tions to  behave  properly.  But  a  representation  of 
Grant  and  Sumner  as  pugilists  would  hardly  make 
Americans  laugh,  because,  though  absurd,  it  would 
not  be  nearly  so  absurd,  or  run  counter  to  any  so 
sharply  defined  standard  of  official  demeanor.  The 
Lord  Chief-Justice  playing  croquet  with  a  pretty 
girl  owes  nearly  all  its  point,  as  a  joke,  to  the  pop- 
ular awe  of  him  and  the  mystery  which  surrounds 
his  mode  of  life  in  popular  eyes ;  a  picture  of  Chief- 
Justice  Chase  doing  the  same  thing  would  hardly 
excite  a  smile,  because  everybody  knows  him,  and 
has  known  him  all  his  life,  and  can  have  access  to 
him  at  any  hour  of  the  night  or  day.  And  then  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Paris  and  London  con- 
tain all  the  famous  men  of  France  and  England,  and 
anybody  who  jokes  about  them  is  sure  of  having 
the  whole  public  for  an  audience ;  while  the  best 
New  York  joke  falls  flat  in  Boston  or  Philadelphia, 
and  flatter  still  in  Cincinnati  or  Chicago,  owing  to 
want  of  acquaintance  with  the  materials  of  which 
it  is  composed. 

We  might  multiply  these  illustrations  indefi- 
nitely, but  we  have  probably  said  enough  to  show 
anyone  that  the  field  open  to  our  comic  writer  is 
very  much  more  restricted  than  that  in  which  his 
European  rival  labors.  He  has,  in  short,  to  seek 


THE  "  COJflC-PAPEfi"   QUESTION  39 

his  jokes  in  character,  while  the  European  may0-' e  "* 
draw  largely  upon  manners,  and  it  is  doubtful 
whether  character  will  ever  supply  materials  for 
a  really  brilliant  weekly  comedian.  Its  points 
are  not  sufficiently  salient.  The  American  comic 
papers  have  evidently  perceived  the  value  of  rever- 
ence and  of  violent  contrast  for  the  purposes  of 
their  profession,  and  this  it  is  which  leads  them  so 
constantly  to  select  reformers  and  reform  move- 
ments as  their  butts.  The  earnest  man,  intensely 
occupied  with  "  a  cause,"  comes  nearer  to  standing 
in  the  relation  to  the  popular  mind  occupied  in 
England  by  the  aristocrat  or  statesman  than  any- 
body else  in  America.  The  politician  is  notorious 
for  his  familiarity  with  all  comers,  and  "  the  gen- 
tleman "  has  become  too  insignificant  a  person  to 
furnish  materials  for  a  contrast ;  but  the  progres- 
sive man  is  sufficiently  well  known,  and  sufficiently 
stiff  in  his  moral  composition,  to  make  it  funny  to 
see  him  in  a  humorous  tableau. 


ME.  FROUDE  AS  A  LECTURER 

ME.  FKOUDE  announced  that  his  object  in  com- 
ing to  America  was  to  enlighten  the  American  pub- 
lic as  to  the  true  nature  of  Irish  discontent,  in  such 
manner  that  American  opinion,  acting  on  Irish 
opinion,  would  reconcile  the  Irish  to  the  English 
connection,  and  turn  their  attention  to  practical 
remedies  for  whatever  was  wrong  in  their  condi- 
tion— American  opinion  being  now,  in  Irish  eyes, 
the  court  of  last  resort  in  all  political  controver- 
sies. It  is  casting  no  reflection  on  the  historical 
or  literary  value  of  his  lectures  to  say  that  Mr. 
Froude,  in  proposing  to  himself  any  such  under- 
taking, fell  into  error  as  to  the  kind  of  audience 
he  was  likely  to  command,  and  as  to  the  nature  of 
the  impression  he  was  likely  to  make.  The  class 
of  persons  who  listen  to  him  is  one  of  great  intel- 
ligence and  respectability,  but  it  is  a  class  to  which 
the  Irish  are  not  in  the  habit  of  listening,  and 
which  has  already  formed  as  unfavorable  opinions 
about  the  political  character  of  the  Irish  as  Mr. 
Froude  could  wish.  He  will  be  surrounded  dur- 
ing his  whole  tour  by  a  public  to  whose  utterances 


MR.  FROUDE  AS  A  LECTURER  41 

the  Irish  pay  no  more  attention  than  to  the  preach- 
ings of  Mr.  Newdegate  or  Mr.  Whalley,  and  who 
have  long  ago  reached,  from  their  observation  of 
the  influence  of  the  Irish  immigration  on  Ameri- 
can politics,  the  very  conclusions  for  which  Mr. 
Froude  proposes  to  furnish  historical  justification. 
In  short,  he  is  addressing  people  who  have  either 
already  made  up  their  minds,  or  whose  minds 
have  no  value  for  the  purpose  of  his  mission. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  will  not  reach  at  all  the 
political  class  which  panders  to  Irish  hatred  of 
England,  and,  if  he  does  reach  it,  he  will  produce 
no  effect  on  it.  Not  one  speech  the  less  will  be 
uttered,  or  article  the  less  written,  in  encourage- 
ment of  Fenianisrn  in  consequence  of  anything  he 
may  say.  Indeed,  the  idea  that  the  Bankses  will 
be  more  careful  in  their  Congressional  reports,  or 
the  Coxes  or  Mortons  in  their  political  harangues, 
either  after  or  before  election,  in  consequence  of 
Mr.  Froude's  demonstration  of  the  groundlessness 
of  Fenian  complaints,  is  one  which  to  "  the  men 
inside  politics  "  must  be  very  amusing. 

AVe  think,  however,  we  can  safely  go  a  little  fur- 
ther than  this,  and  say  that  however  much  light  he 
may  throw  on  the  troubled  waters  of  Irish  history, 
his  deductions  will  not  find  a  ready  acceptance 
among  thinking  Americans.  The  men  who  will 
heartily  agree  with  him  in  believing  that  the  Irish 


42  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

\  have,  on  the  whole,  only  received  their  due,  are  not, 
as  a  rule,  fair  exponents  of  the  national  temper  or  of 
the  tendencies  of  the  national  mind.  Those  who 
listened  on  Friday  night  last  to  his  picturesque 
account  of  the  Elizabethan  and  Cromwellian  at- 
tempts to  pacify  Ireland,  must  have  felt  in  their 
bones  that — in  spite  of  the  cheers  which  greeted 
some  of  his  own  more  eloquent  and  some  of  his 
bolder  passages,  and  in  particular  his  dauntless 
way  of  dealing  with  the  Drogheda  Massacre — his 
political  philosophy  was  not  one  which  the  aver- 
age American  could  be  got  to  carry  home  with  him 
and  ponder  and  embrace.  Mr.  Froude,  it  must 
in  justice  to  him  be  said,  by  no  means  throws  all 
the  responsibility  of  Irish  misery  on  Ireland.  He 
deals  out  a  considerable  share  of  this  responsibility 
to  England,  but  then  his  mode  of  apportioning  it 
is  one  which  is  completely  opposed  to  most  of  the 
fundamental  notions  of  American  politics.  For 
instance,  his  whole  treatment  of  Irish  history  is 
permeated  by  an  idea  which,  whatever  marks  it 
may  have  left  on  American  practice  in  dealing  with 
the  Indians,  has  no  place  now  in  American  polit- 
ical philosophy — we  mean  what  is  called  in  Eng- 
lish politics  "  the  imperial  idea" — the  idea,  that  is, 
that  a  strong,  bold,  and  courageous  race  has  a  sort 
of  "  natural  right  "  to  invade  the  territory  of  weak, 
semi-civilized,  and  distracted  races,  and  undertake 


MR.  FROUDE  AS  A   LECTURER  43 

the  task  of  governing  them  by  such  methods  as 
seem  best,  and  at  such  cost  of  life  as  may  be  neces- 
sary. This  idea  is  a  necessary  product  of  English 
history ;  it  is  not  likely  to  disappear  in  England  as 
long  as  she  possesses  such  a  school  for  soldiers 
and  statesmen  as  is  furnished  by  India.  Indeed, 
she  could  not  stay  in  India  without  some  such 
theory  to  support  her  troops,  but  it  is  not  one 
which  will  find  a  ready  acceptance  here.  Ameri- 
can opinion  has,  within  the  last  twenty  years,  run 
into  the  very  opposite  extreme,  and  now  maintains 
with  some  tenacity  the  right  even  of  barbarous 
communities  to  be  let  alone  and  allowed  to  work 
out  their  own  salvation^or  damnation  in  their  own 
way.  Tnere  is  little  or  no  faith  left  in  this  coun- 
try in  the  value  of  superimposed  civilization,  or  of 
"  superior  minds,"  or  of  higher  organization,  while 
there  is  a  deep  suspicion  of,  or  we  might  say  there 
is  deep  hostility  toward,  all  claims  to  rule  based 
on  alleged  superiority  of  race  or  creed  or  class. 
We  doubt  if  Mr.  Froude  could  have  hit  on  a  more 
unpalatable  mode,  or  a  mode  more  likely  to  clash 
with  the  prevailing  tendencies  of  American  opin- 
ion, of  defending  English  rule  in  Ireland  than  the 
argument  that,  Englishmen  being  stronger  and 
wiser  than  Irishmen,  Irishmen  ought  to  submit 
to  have  themselves  governed  on  English  ideas 
whether  they  like  it  or  not.  He  has  produced  this 


44  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

argument  already  in  England,  and  it  lias  elicited 
there  a  considerable  amount  of  indignant  protest. 
We  are  forced  to  say  of  it  here  that  it  is  likely  to 
do  great  mischief,  over  and  above  the  total  defeat 
of  Mr.  Froude's  object  in  coming  to  this  country. 
The  Irish  in  America  are  more  likely  to  be  exas- 
perated by  it  than  the  Irish  at  home,  and  we  feel 
sure  that  no  native  American  will  ever  venture  to 
use  it  to  an  Irish  audience. 

There  is  one  other  point  to  which  Mr.  Froude's 
attention  ought  to  be  called,  as  likely  seriously  to 
diminish  the  political  weight  of  his  exposition  of 
the  causes  of  Irish  discontent.  The  sole  justifica- 
tion of  a  conquest,  even  of  a  conquest  achieved  over 
barbarians  by  a  civilized  people,  is  that  it  supplies 
good  government — that  is,  protection  for  life  and 
property.  Unless  it  does  this,  no  picture,  however 
dark,  of  the  discords  and  disorder  and  savagery  of 
the  conquered  can  set  the  conqueror  right  at  the  bar 
of  civilized  opinion.  Therefore,  the  shocking  and 
carefully  darkened  pictures  of  the  social  and  polit- 
ical degradation  of  the  native  Irish  in  the  fifteenth, 
sixteenth,  and  seventeenth  centuries  with  which 
Mr.  Froude  is  furnishing  us,  are  available  for  Eng- 
lish vindication  only  on  the  supposition  that  the 
\  invasion,  even  if  it  destroyed  liberty,  brought  with 
it  law  and  order.  But  according  to  Mr.  Froude's 
eloquent  confession,  it  brought  nothing  of  the  kind. 


MR.  FROUDE  AS  A  LECTURER  45 

Queen  Elizabeth  made  the  first  serious  attempt  to 
subjugate  Ireland,  but  she  did  it,  Mr.  Froude  tells 
us,  with  only  a  handful  of  English  soldiers — who 
acted  as  auxiliaries  to  Irish  clans  engaged  on  the 
queen's  instigation  in  mutual  massacre.  After 
three  years  of  this  sort  of  thing,  the  whole  south- 
ern portion  of  the  island  was  reduced,  to  use  Mr. 
Froude's  words,  "  to  a  smoking  wilderness,"  men, 
women,  and  children  having  been  remorselessly 
slaughtered ;  but  no  attempt  whatever  was  then 
made  to  establish  either  courts  or  police,  or  any 
civil  rule  of  any  kind.  Society  was  left  in  a  worse 
condition  than  before.  Why  was  this  ?  Because, 
says  Mr.  Froude,  the  English  Constitution  made 
no  provision  for  the  maintenance  of  a  standing 
army  for  any  such  purpose. 

The  second  attempt  was  made  by  Cromwell. 
He  slaughtered  the  garrisons  of  Drogheda  and 
Wexford,  and  scattered  the  armies  of  the  various 
Irish  factions,  but  he  made  no  more  attempt  to 
police  the  island  than  Elizabeth.  The  only  mode 
of  establishing  order  resorted  to  by  the  Common- 
wealth was  the  wholesale  confiscation  of  the  land, 
and  its  distribution  among  the  officers  and  soldiers 
of  the  army,  the  natives  of  all  ages  and  sexes  being 
driven  into  Connaught.  The  "  policing  "  was  then 
left  to  be  done  by  the  new  settlers,  each  man  with 
the  strong  hand,  on  his  own  account.  The  third 


46  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

attempt  was  made  by  "William  III.,  who  also  fol- 
lowed the  Cromwellian  plan,  and  left  the  island  to 
be  governed  during  the  following  century  by  the 
military  adventurers  who  had  entered  into  posses- 
sion of  the  soil. 

The  excuse  for  not  endeavoring  to  set  up  an 
honest  and  efficient  government  remained  the  same 
in  all  three  cases ;  the  absence  of  an  army,  or  occu- 
pation elsewhere.  In  other  words,  the  conquest 
from  first  to  last  wanted  the  only  justification  which 
any  conquest  can  have.  England  found  the  Irish 
much  in  the  same  stage  of  social  and  political  prog- 
ress in  which  Caesar  found  the  Gauls,  destitute  of 
nearly  all  the  elements  of  political  organization ;  but 
instead  of  founding  a  political  system,  and  main- 
taining it,  she  interfered  for  century  after  century 
only  to  subjugate  and  lay  Avaste,  and  set  the  natives 
by  the  ears.  Mr.  Froude's  answer  to  this  is,  that  if 
the  Irish  had  been  better  men  they  could  easily 
have  driven  the  English  out,  which  is  perhaps  a  good 
reason  for  not  bestowing  much  pity  on  the  Irish, 
but  it  is  not  a  good  reason  for  telling  the  Irish  they 
ought  not  to  hate  England.  No  pity  can  be  made 
welcome  which  is  ostentatiously  mingled  with  con- 
tempt. It  is  quite  true,  to  our  minds,  that  during 
the  last  fifty  years  England  has  supplied  the  Irish 
with  a  better  government  than  the  Irish  could  pro- 
vide for  themselves  within  the  next  century  at  least. 


MR.  FROUDE  AS  A   LECTURER  47 

There  is  no  doubt  of  the  substantial  value  of  the 
English  connection  to  Ireland  now  ;  but  there  is 
just  as  little  that  in  the  past  history  of  this  connec- 
tion there  is  reason  enough  for  Irish  suspicion  and 
dislike.  The  tenacity  of  the  Irish  memory,  too,  is 
one  of  the  great  political  defects  and  misfortunes  of 
the  race.  Inability  to  forget  past  "  wrongs  "  in  the 
light  of  present  prosperity,  is  a  sure  sign  of  the  ab- 
sence of  the  political  sense ;  and  that  the  Irish  are 
wanting  in  the  political  sense  no  candid  man  can 
deny.  That  they  are  really  still,  to  a  considerable 
extent,  in  the  tribal  stage  of  progress,  there  is  little 
doubt.  But  they  are  surrounded  by  ideas,  and  in- 
stitutions, and  influences  which  make  it  useless  to 
try  to  raise  them  out  of  that  stage  by  the  "  impe- 
rial "  method  of  government,  or,  in  other  words,  by 
trying  to  persuade  them  that  they  have  richly  de- 
served all  their  misfortunes,  and  that  the  best  thing 
they  can  do  is  to  let  a  superior  race  mould  their 
destinies.  If  it  were  possible  for  Englishmen  to  be 
a  little  more  patient  with  their  weaknesses,  to  yield 
a  little  more  to  the  childish  vanities  and  aspirations 
which  form  the  nearest  approach  they  have  yet 
made  to  a  feeling  of  nationality,  and  take  upon 
themselves  in  word  as  well  as  in  deed  their  share  of 
the  horrible  burdens  of  Irish  history,  it  would  do 
more  toward  winning  them  Irish  confidence  than 
anything  Americans  are  ever  likely  to  say. 


ME.  HORACE  GEEELET 

THERE  has  been  something  almost  tragic  about 
the  close  of  Mr.  Greeley's  career.  After  a  life  of, 
on  the  whole,  remarkable  success  and  prosperity, 
he  fell  finally  under  the  weight  of  accumulated 
misfortunes.  Nobody  who  heard  him  declare  that 
"he  accepted  the  Cincinnati  Convention  and  its 
consequences,"  but  must  be  struck  by  the  illustra- 
tion of  what  is  called  "  the  irony  of  fate,"  which 
nearly  everything  that  occurred  afterwards  affords. 
His  nomination,  from  whatever  point  of  view  we 
look  at  it,  was  undoubtedly  a  high  honor.  The 
manner  in  which  it  was  received  down  to  the  Bal- 
timore Convention  was  very  nattering.  Whether 
it  was  a  proper  thing  to  "  beat  Grant "  or  not,  that 
so  large  and  so  shrewd  a  body  of  his  countrymen 
should  have  thought  Mr.  Greeley  the  man  to  do  it 
was  a  great  compliment.  It  found  him,  too,  in 
possession  of  all  the  influence  which  the  successful 
pursuit  of  his  own  calling  could  give  a  man — the 
most  powerful  editor  in  the  Union,  surrounded  by 
friends  and  admirers,  feared  or  courted  by  nearly 


MR.  HORACE  G  REE  LET  49 

everybody  in  public  life,  and  in  the  full  enjoyment 
of  widespread  popular  confidence  in  his  integrity. 
In  six  short  months  he  was  well-nigh  undone. 
He  had  endured  a  humiliating  defeat,  which 
seemed  to  him  to  indicate  the  loss  of  what  was  his 
dearest  possession,  the  affection  of  the  American 
people ;  he  had  lost  the  weight  in  public  affairs 
which  he  had  built  up  by  thirty  years  of  labor ;  he 
saw  his  property  and,  as  he  thought,  that  of  his 
friends  diminished  by  the  attempt  to  give  him  a 
prize  which  he  had  in  his  own  estimation  fairly 
earned,  and,  though  last  not  least,  he  found  his 
home  invaded  by  death,  and  one  of  the  strongest 
of  the  ties  which  bind  a  man  to  this  earth  broken. 
It  would  not  be  wonderful  if,  under  these  circum- 
stances, the  coldest  and  toughest  of  men  should 
lie  down  and  die.  But  Mr.  Greeley  was  neither 
cold  nor  tough.  He  was  keenly  sensitive  both  to 
praise  and  blame.  The  applause  of  even  paltry 
men  gladdened  him,  and  their  censure  stung  him. 
Moreover,  he  had  that  intense  longing  for  reputa- 
tion as  a  man  of  action  by  which  men  of  the  closet 
are  so  often  torn.  In  spite  of  all  that  his  writing 
brought  him  in  reputation,  he  writhed  under  the 
popular  belief  that  he  could  do  nothing  but  write, 
and  he  spent  the  flower  of  his  years  trying  to  con- 
vince the  public  that  it  was  mistaken  about  him. 
It  was  to  this  we  owed  whatever  was  ostentatious 
4 


50  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

in  his  devotion  to  farming,  and  in  his  interest  in 
the  manufacturing  industry  of  the  country.  It  was 
to  this,  too,  that  he  owed  his  keen  and  lifelong  de- 
sire for  office,  and,  in  part  at  least,  his  activity  in 
getting  offices  for  other  people. 

Office-seekers  have  become  in  the  United  States 
so  ridiculous  and  so  contemptible  a  class,  that  a 
man  can  hardly  seek  a  place  in  the  public  service 
without  incurring  a  certain  amount  of  odium  ;  and 
perhaps  nothing  did  more  damage  to  Mr.  Greeley's 
reputation  than  his  anxiety  to  be  put  in  places  of 
trust  or  dignity.  And  yet  it  is  doubtful  if  many 
men  seek  office  with  more  respectable  motives  than 
his.  For  pecuniary  emolument  he  cared  nothing  ; 
but  he  did  pine  all  his  life  long  for  some  conspic- 
uous recognition  of  his  capacity  for  the  conduct  of 
affairs,  and  he  never  got  it.  The  men  who  have 
nominations  to  bestow  either  never  had  confidence 
enough  in  his  judgment  or  ability  to  offer  him  any- 
thing which  he  would  have  thought  worthy  of  his 
expectations  when  there  was  the  least  chance  of 
their  choice  receiving  a  popular  ratification.  They 
disliked  him,  as  politicians  are  apt  to  dislike  an 
editor  in  the  political  arena,  as  a  man  who,  in  hav- 
ing a  newspaper  at  his  back,  is  sure  not  to  play 
their  game  fairly.  The  consequence  was  that  he 
was  constantly  irritated  by  finding  how  purely  pro- 
fessional his  influence  was,  or,  in  other  words, 


MR.  HORACE  G  REE  LET  51 

what  a  mortifying  disproportion  existed  between 
his  editorial  and  his  personal  power.  The  first 
revelation  the  public  had  of  the  bitterness  of  his 
disappointment  on  this  score  was  caused  by  the 
publication  of  the  famous  Seward  letter,  and  the 
surprise  it  caused  was  perhaps  the  highest  compli- 
ment Mr.  Greeley  ever  received.  It  showed  with 
what  success  he  had  prevented  his  private  griefs 
from  affecting  his  public  action,  and  people  are  al- 
ways ready  to  forgive  ambition  as  an  "  infirmity  of 
noble  minds,"  even  when  they  do  not  feel  disposed 
to  reward  it. 

Unfortunately  for  Mr.  Greeley,  however,  he 
never  could  persuade  himself  that  the  public  was 
of  the  same  mind  as  the  politicians  regarding  his 
personal  capacity.  He  persisted  to  the  last  in  be- 
lieving himself  the  victim  of  their  envy,  hatred, 
and  malice,  and  looking  with  unabated  hope  to 
some  opportunity  of  obtaining  a  verdict  on  his 
merits  as  a  man  of  action,  in  which  his  widespread 
popularity  and  his  long  and  laborious  teachings 
would  fairly  tell.  The  result  of  the  Cincinnati 
Convention,  which  his  friends  and  emissaries  from 
this  city  went  out  to  prepare,  but  which  perhaps 
neither  he  nor  they  in  the  beginning  ventured  to 
hope  for,  seemed  to  promise  him  at  last  the  crown 
and  consummation  of  a  life's  longings,  and  he  re- 
ceived it  with  almost  childlike  joy.  The  election 


53  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

was,  therefore,  a  crushing  blow.  It  was  not,  per- 
haps, the  failure  to  get  the  presidency  that  was 
hardest  to  bear — for  this  might  have  been  accom- 
panied by  such  a  declaration  of  his  fitness  for  the 
presidency  as  would  have  sweetened  the  remainder 
of  his  years — it  was  the  contemptuous  greatness 
of  his  opponent's  majority  which  was  killing.  It 
dissipated  the  illusion  of  half  a  lifetime  on  the  one 
point  on  which  illusions  are  dearest — a  man's  exact 
place  in  the  estimation  of  his  countrymen.  Yery 
few — even  of  those  whose  fame  rests  on  the  most 
solid  foundation  of  achievement — ever  ask  to  have 
this  ascertained  by  a  positive  test  without  dread 
or  misgiving,  or  face  the  test  without  a  strain 
which  the  nerves  of  old  men  are  often  ill  fitted  to 
bear.  That  Mr.  Greeley's  nerves  were  unequal  to 
the  shock  of  failure  we  now  know.  But  it  needed 
no  intimate  acquaintance  with  him  to  see  that  the 
card  in  which  he  announced,  two  days  after  the 
election,  that  he  would  thereafter  be  a  simple 
editor,  would  seek  office  no  more,  and  would  con- 
fine himself  to  the  production  of  a  candid  and 
judicial-minded  paper,  must  have  been  written  in 
bitterness  of  spirit  for  which  this  world  had  no 
balm. 

In  addition  to  the  deceptions  caused  by  his 
editorial  influence,  Mr.  Greeley  had  others  to  con- 
tend with,  more  subtle,  but  not  less  potent.  The 


MR.  HORACE  G REELS Y  53 

position  of  the  editor  of  a  leading  daily  paper  is 
one  which,  in  our  time,  is  hardly  possible  for  the 
calmest  and  most  candid  man  to  fill  without  hav- 
ing his  judgment  of  himself  perverted  by  flattery. 
Our  age  is  intensely  commercial ;  it  is  not  the  dry- 
goods  man  or  the  grain  merchant  only  who  has 
goods  for  sale,  but  the  poet,  the  orator,  the  scholar, 
the  philosopher,  and  the  politician.  We  are  all, 
in  a  measure,  seeking  a  market  for  our  wares. 
What  we  desire,  therefore,  above  all  things,  is  a 
good  advertising  medium,  or,  in  other  words,  a 
good  means  of  making  known  to  all  the  world 
where  our  store  is  and  what  we  have  to  sell.  This 
means  the  editor  of  a  daily  paper  can  furnish  to 
anybody  he  pleases.  He  is  consequently  the  ob- 
ject of  unceasing  adulation  from  a  crowd  of  those 
who  shrink  from  fighting  the  slow  and  doubtful 
battle  of  life  in  the  open  field,  and  crave  the  kindly 
shelter  of  editorial  plaudits,  "  puffs,"  and  "  men- 
tions." He  finds  this  adulation  offered  freely,  and 
by  all  classes  and  conditions,  without  the  least 
reference  to  his  character  or  talents  or  antece- 
dents. What  wonder  if  it  turns  the  heads  of  un- 
worthy men,  and  begets  in  them  some  of  the  vices 
of  despots — their  unscrupulousness,  their  cruelty, 
and  their  impudence.  What  wonder,  too,  if  it 
should  have  thrown  off  his  balance  a  man  like  Mr. 
Greeley,  whose  head  was  not  strong,  whose  educa- 


54  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

tion  was  imperfect,  and  whose  self-confidence  had 
been  fortified  by  a  brave  and  successful  struggle 
with  adversity. 

Of  his  many  private  virtues,  of  his  kind-hearted- 
ness, his  generosity,  his  sympathy  with  all  forms 
of  suffering  and  anxiety,  we  do  not  need  to  speak. 
His  career,  too,  has  little  in  it  to  point  any  moral 
that  is  not  already  trite  and  familiar.  The  only 
lesson  we  can  gather  from  it  with  any  clearness  is 
the  uncertainty  of  this  world,  and  all  that  it  con- 
tains, and  the  folly  of  seeking  the  presidency.  No- 
body can  hope  to  follow  in  his  footsteps.  He  began 
life  as  a  kind  of  editor  of  which  he  was  one  of  the 
last  specimens,  and  which  will  shortly  be  totally  ex- 
tinct— the  editor  who  fought  as'  the  man-at-arms 
of  the  party.  This  kind  of  work  Mr.  Greeley  did 
with  extraordinary  earnestness  and  vehemence  and 
success — so  much  success  that  a  modern  newspaper 
finally  grew  up  around  him,  in  spite  of  him,  almost 
to  his  surprise,  and  often  to  his  embarrassment. 
The  changed  condition  of  journalism,  the  substitu- 
tion of  the  critical  for  the  party  views  of  things, 
he  never  wholly  accepted,  and  his  frequent  per- 
sonal appearance  in  his  columns,  under  the  signa- 
ture of  "  H.  G.,"  hurling  defiance  at  his  enemies 
or  exposing  their  baseness,  showed  how  stifling  he 
found  the  changed  atmosphere.  He  was  fast  fall- 
ing behind  his  age  when  he  died.  New  men,  and 


MR.  HORACE   G  REE  LEY  55 

new  issues,  and  new  processes,  which  he  either  did 
not  understand  at  all  or  only  understood  imper- 
fectly, crowded  upon  him.  If  the  dazzling  prize 
of  the  presidency  had  not  been  held  before  his 
eyes,  we  should  probably  have  witnessed  his  grad- 
ual but  certain  retirement  into  well-won  repose. 
Those  who  opposed  him  most  earnestly  must  now 
regret  sincerely  that  in  his  last  hours  he  should 
have  knoAvn  the  bitterness  of  believing,  what  was 
really  not  true,  that  the  labors  of  his  life,  which 
were  largely  devoted  to  good  causes,  had  not  met 
the  appreciation  they  merited  at  the  hands  of  his 
countrymen.  It  is  for  his  own  sake,  as  well  as 
that  of  the  public,  greatly  to  be  regretted  that  he 
should  not  have  lived  until  the  smoke  of  the  late 
conflict  had  cleared  away. 


THE   MOEALS    AND    MANNERS  OF    THE 
KITCHEN 

ME.  FEOUDE'S  attempt  to  secure  from  the  Ameri- 
can public  a  favorable  judgment  on  the  dealings  of 
England  with  Ireland  has  had  one  good  result — 
though  we  fear  only  one — in  leading  to  a  little 
closer  examination  of  the  real  state  of  American 
opinion  about  Irish  grievances  than  it  has  yet  re- 
ceived. He  will  go  back  to  England  with  the 
knowledge  —  which  he  evidently  did  not  possess 
when  he  came  here — that  the  great  body  of  intel- 
ligent Americans  care  very  little  about  the  history 
of  "  the  six  hundred  years  of  wrong,"  and  know 
even  less  than  they  care,  and  could  not  be  in- 
duced, except  by  a  land-grant,  or  a  bounty,  or  a 
drawback,  to  acquaint  themselves  with  it ;  that 
those  of  them  who  have  ever  tried  to  form  an 
opinion  on  the  Anglo  -  Irish  controversy  have 
hardly  ever  got  farther  than  a  loose  notion  that 
England  had  most  likely  behaved  like  a  bully  all 
through,  but  that  her  victim  was  beyond  all  ques- 
tion an  obstreperous  and  irreclaimable  ruffian, 


THE  MORALS  AND  UANNXB8   OF  THE  KITCHEN   57 

whose  ill-treatnient  must  be  severely  condemned 
by  the  moralist,  but  over  whom  no  sensible  man 
can  be  expected  to  weep  or  sympathize. 

The  agencies  which  have  helped  to  form  the  pop- 
ular idea  of  the  English  political  character  are  well 
known  ;  those  which  have  helped  to  deprive  the 
Irish  of  American  sympathy — and  which,  if  Mr. 
Froude  had  judiciously  confined  himself  to  de- 
scribing the  efforts  made  by  England  to  promote 
Irish  well-being  now,  would  probably  have  made 
his  lectures  very  successful — are  more  obscure. 
We  ourselves  pointed  out  one  of  the  most  promi- 
nent, and  probably  most  powerful — the  conduct  of 
the  Irish  servant-girl  in  the  American  kitchen. 
To  this  must  of  course  be  added  the  specimen 
of  "  home  rule  "  to  which  the  country  has  been 
treated  in  this  city  ;  but  we  doubt  if  this  latter 
has  really  exercised  as  much  influence  on  Ameri- 
can opinion  as  some  writers  try  to  make  out.  A 
community  which  has  produced  Butler,  Banks, 
Parker,  Bullock,  Tweed,  Tom  Fields,  Oakey  Hall, 
Fernando  Wood,  Barnard,  and  scores  of  others 
whom  we  might  name,  as  the  results  of  good  Prot- 
estant and  Anglo-Saxon  breeding,  cannot  really 
be  greatly  shocked  iby  the  bad  workings  of  Celtic 
blood  and  Catholic  theology  in  the  persons  of  Pet- 
er B.  Sweeny,  Billy  McMullen,  Jimmy  O'Brien, 
Reddy  the  Blacksmith,  or  Judge  McCunn.  It  is 


58  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

in  the  kitchen  that  the  Irish  iron  has  entered  into 
the  American  soul ;  and  it  is  in  the  kitchen  that  a 
great  triumph  was  prepared  for  Mr.  Fronde,  had 
he  been  a  judicious  man.  The  memory  of  burned 
steaks,  of  hard-boiled  potatoes,  of  smoked  milk, 
would  have  done  for  him  what  no  state  papers,  or 
records,  or  correspondence  of  the  illustrious  dead 
can  ever  do ;  it  had  prepared  the  American  mind 
to  believe  the  very  worst  he  could  say  of  Irish  tur- 
bulence and  disorder.  Not  one  of  his  auditors  but 
could  find  in  his  own  experience  of  Irish  cooking 
circumstances  which  would  probably  have  led  him 
to  accept  without  question  the  execution  of  Silken 
Thomas,  the  massacre  of  Drogheda,  or  even  the 
Penal  Laws,  as  perfectly  justifiable  exercises  of 
authority,  and  would  certainly  have  made  it  easy 
for  him  to  believe  that  English  rule  in  Ireland  at 
the  present  day  is  beneficent  beyond  example. 

Nevertheless,  we  are  constrained  to  say  that  in 
our  opinion  a  great  deal  of  the  odium  which  sur- 
rounds Bridget,  and  which  has  excited  so  much 
prejudice,  not  only  against  her  countrj^men,  but 
against  her  ancestors,  in  American  eyes,  has  a 
very  insufficient  foundation  in  reason.  There  are 
three  characters  in  which  she  is  the  object  of  pub- 
lic suspicion  and  dislike — (1)  as  a  cook ;  (2)  as  a 
party  to  a  contract ;  (3)  as  a  member  of  a  house- 
hold. The  charges  made  against  her  in  all  of 


THE  MORALS  AND  MANNERS  OF  THE  KITCHEN  59 

these  have  been  summed  up  in  a  recent  attack  on 
her  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  as  "a  lack  of  every 
quality  which  makes  service  endurable  to  the  em- 
ployer, or  a  wholesome  life  for  the  servant." 

And  the  same  article  charges  her  with  "  proving 
herself,  in  obedience,  fidelity,  care,  and  accuracy, 
the  inferior  of  every  kind  of  servant  known  to 
modern  society."  Of  course,  there  is  hardly  a 
family  in  the  country  which  has  not  had,  in  its 
own  experience,  illustrations  of  the  extravagance 
of  these  charges.  There  is  probably  nobody  who 
has  long  kept  servants,  who  has  not  had  Irish  ser- 
vants who  were  obedient,  faithful,  careful,  and 
even  accurate  in  a  remarkable  degree.  But  then 
it  must  be  admitted  that  this  indictment  is  a  toler- 
ably fair  rendering,  if  not  of  the  actual  facts  of  the 
case,  at  least  of  the  impression  the  facts  have  left 
on  the  mind  of  the  average  employer.  This  im- 
pression, however,  needs  correction,  as  a  few  not 
very  recondite  considerations  will  show. 

As  a  cook,  Bridget  is  an  admitted  failure.  But 
cooking  is,  it  is  now  generally  acknowledged,  very 
much  an  affair  of  instinct,  and  this  instinct  seems 
to  be  very  strong  in  some  races  and  very  weak  in 
others,  though  why  the  French  should  have  it 
highly  developed,  and  the  Irish  be  almost  alto- 
gether deprived  of  it,  is  a  question  which  would 
require  an  essay  to  itself.  No  amount  of  teaching 


60  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

will  make  a  person  a  good  cook  who  is  not  himself 
fond  of  good  food  and  has  not  a  delicate  palate, 
for  it  is  the  palate  which  must  test  the  value  of 
rules.  We  may  deduce  from  this  the  conclusion, 
which  experience  justifies,  that  women  are  not  nat- 
urally good  cooks.  They  have  had  the  cookery  of 
the  world  in  their  hands  for  several  thousand  years, 
but  all  the  marked  advances  in  the  art,  and  indeed 
all  that  can  be  called  the  cultivation  of  it,  have 
been  the  work  of  men.  Whatever  zeal  women  have 
displayed  in  it,  and  whatever  excellence  they  have 
achieved  in  it,  have  been  the  result  of  influences 
in  no  way  gastronomic,  and  which  we  might  per- 
haps call  emotional,  such  as  devotion  to  male  rela- 
tives, or  a  desire  to  minister  to  the  pleasure  of  men 
in  general.  Few  or  no  women  cook  a  dinner  in  an 
artistic  spirit,  and  their  success  in  doing  it  is  near- 
ly always  the  result  of  affection  or  loyalty — which 
is  of  course  tantamount  to  saying  that  female 
cookery  as  a  whole  is,  and  always  has  been,  com- 
paratively poor. 

As  a  proof  of  this,  we  may  mention  the  fact — 
for  fact  we  think  it  is — that  the  art  of  cooking 
among  women  has  declined  at  any  given  time  or 
place — in  the  Northern  States  of  the  Union,  for 
instance — pari  passu  with  the  growth  of  female 
independence.  That  is,  as  the  habit  or  love  of 
ministering  to  men's  tastes  has  become  weaker,  the 


THE  MORALS  AND  MANNERS   OF  THE  KITCHEN   61 

interest  in  cookery  has  fallen  off.  There  are  no 
such  cooks  among  native  American  women  now  as 
there  were  fifty  years  ago  ;  and  passages  in  foreign 
cookery  books  which  assume  the  existence  among 
women  of  strong  interest  in  their  husbands'  and 
brothers'  likings,  and  strong  desire  to  gratify  them, 
furnish  food  for  merriment  in  American  house- 
holds. Bridget,  therefore,  can  plead,  first  of  all, 
the  general  incapacity  of  women  as  cooks;  and, 
secondly,  the  general  falling  off  in  the  art  under 
the  influence  of  the  new  ideas.  It  may  be  that 
she  ought  to  cultivate  assiduously  or  with  enthusi- 
asm a  calling  which  all  the  other  women  of  the 
country  ostentatiously  despise,  but  she  would  be 
more  than  human  if  she  did  so.  She  imitates 
American  women  as  closely  as  she  can,  and  cannot 
live  on  the  same  soil  without  imbibing  their  ideas ; 
and  unhappily,  as  in  all  cases  of  imitation,  vices 
are  more  easily  and  earlier  caught  than  virtues. 

She  can  make,  too,  an  economical  defence  of  the 
most  powerful  kind,  to  the  attacks  on  her  in  this 
line,  and  it  is  this  :  that  whether  her  cooking  be 
bad  or  good,  she  offers  it  without  deception  or 
subterfuge,  at  a  fair  rate,  and  without  compulsion  ; 
that  nobody  who  does  not  like  her  dishes  need  eat 
them  ;  and  that  her  defects  of  taste  or  training  can 
only  be  fairly  made  a  cause  of  hatred  and  abuse 
when  she  does  work  badly,  which  somebody  else  is 


63  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

waiting  to  do  better,  if  she  would  get  out  of  the 
way.  She  has  undertaken  the  task  of  cooking  for 
the  American  nation,  not  of  her  own  motion,  but 
simply  and  solely  because  the  American  nation 
could  find  nobody  else  to  do  it.  She  does  not, 
therefore,  occupy  the  position  of  a  broken-down  or 
incompetent  artist,  but  of  a  volunteer  at  a  fire,  or 
a  passer-by  when  you  are  lying  in  the  ditch  with 
your  leg  broken. 

The  plain  truth  of  the  matter  is,  that  the  whole 
native  population  of  the  United  States  has  almost 
suddenly,  and  with  one  accord,  refused  to  perform 
for  hire  any  of  the  services  usually  called  "  menial " 
or  indoor.  The  men  have  found  other  more  pro- 
ductive fields  of  industry,  and  the  women,  under 
the  influence  of  the  prevailing  theory  of  life, 
have  resolved  to  accept  any  employment  at  any 
wages  sooner  than  do  other  people's  housework. 
The  result*  has  been  a  demand  for  trained  ser- 
vants which  the  whole  European  continent  could 
not  supply  if  it  would,  and  which  has  proved  so 
intense  that  it  has  drawn  the  peasantry  out  of 
the  fields  en  masse  from  the  one  European  coun- 
try in  which  the  peasantry  was  sufficiently  poor 
to  be  tempted,  and  spoke  or  understood  the 
American  language.  No  such  phenomenon  has 
ever  been  witnessed  before.  No  country  before 
has  ever  refused  to  do  its  own  "  chores,"  and  called 


THE  MORALS  AND  MANNERS  OF  THE  KITCHEN   63 

in  an  army  of  foreigners  for  the  purpose.  To  com- 
plain bitterly  of  their  want  of  skill  is  therefore, 
under  the  circumstances,  almost  puerile,  from  an 
economical  point  of  view;  while,  to  anyone  who 
looks  at  the  matter  as  a  moralist,  it  is  hard  to  see 
why  Bridget,  doing  the  work  badly  in  the  kitchen, 
is  any  more  a  contemptible  object  than  the  Amer- 
ican sewing-girl  killing  herself  in  a  garret  at  three 
dollars  a  week,  out  of  devotion  to  "  the  principle 
of  equality." 

As  a  party  to  a  contract,  Bridget's  defects  are 
very  strongly  marked.  Her  sense  of  the  obliga- 
tion of  contracts  is  feeble.  The  reason  why  this 
particular  vice  excites  so  much  odium  in  her  case 
is,  that  the  inconveniences  of  her  breaches  of  con- 
tract are  greater  than  those  of  almost  any  other 
member  of  the  community.  They  touch  us  in  our 
most  intimate  social  relations,  and  cause  us  an 
amount  of  mental  anguish  out  of  all  proportion  to 
their  real  importance.  But  her  spirit  about  con- 
tracts is  really  that  of  the  entire  community  in 
which  she  lives.  Her  way  of  looking  at  her  em- 
ployer is,  we  sincerely  believe,  about  the  way  of 
looking  at  him  common  among  all  employees. 
The  only  real  restraint  on  laborers  of  any  class 
among  us  nowadays  is  the  difficulty  of  finding 
another  place.  Whenever  it  becomes  as  easy  for 
clerks,  draughtsmen,  mechanics,  and  the  like  to 


64  REFLECTIONS  AND   COtflfENTS 

"  suit  themselves  "  as  it  is  for  cooks  or  housemaids, 
we  find  them  as  faithless.  Native  mechanics  and 
seamstresses  are  just  as  perfidious  as  Bridget,  but 
incur  less  obloquy,  because  their  faithlessness 
causes  less  annoyance  ;  but  they  have  no  more  re- 
gard in  making  their  plans  for  the  interest  or 
wishes  of  their  employer  than  she  has,  and  they 
all  take  the  "  modern  view  "  of  the  matter.  What 
makes  her  so  fond  of  change  is  that  she  lives  in  a 
singularly  restless  society,  in  which  everybody  is 
engaged  in  a  continual  struggle  to  "better  him- 
self " — her  master,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  setting 
her  an  example  of  dislike  to  steady  industry  and 
slow  gains.  Moreover,  domestic  service  is  a  kind 
of  employment  which,  if  not  sweetened  by  per- 
sonal affection,  is  extraordinarily  full  of  wear  and 
tear.  In  it  there  is  no  real  end  to  the  day,  and  in 
small  households,  the  pursuit  and  oversight,  and 
often  the  "  nagging,"  of  the  employer,  or,  in  other 
words,  the  presence  of  an  exacting,  semi-hostile, 
and  slightly  contemptuous  person  is  constant. 
This  and  confinement  in  a  half-dark  kitchen  pro- 
dace  that  nervous  crisis  which  sends  male  me- 
chanics and  other  male  laborers,  engaged  in  mo- 
notonous callings,  off  "  on  a  spree."  In  Bridget's 
case  it  works  itself  off  by  a  change  of  place,  with  a 
few  days  of  squalid  repose  among  "  her  own  peo- 
ple "  in  a  tenement-house. 


THE  MORALS  AND  MANNERS   OF  THE  KITCHEN   65 

As  regards  her  general  bearing  as  a  member  of 
a  household,  she  has  to  contend  with  three  great 
difficulties— ignorance  of  civilized  domestic  life, 
for  which  she  is  no  more  to  blame  than  Russian 
moujiks ;  difference  of  race  and  creed  on  the  part 
of  her  employer  (and  this  is  one  which  the  ser- 
vants of  no  other  country  have  to  contend  with) ; 
and  lastly,  the  strong  contempt  for  domestic  ser- 
vice felt  and  manifested  by  all  that  portion  of  the 
American  population  with  which  she  comes  in  con- 
tact, and  to  which  it  is  her  great  ambition  to  as- 
similate herself.  Those  who  have  ever  tried  the 
experiment  of  late  years  of  employing  a  native 
American  as  a  servant,  have,  we  believe,  before  it 
was  over,  generally  come  to  look  on  Bridget  as  the 
personification  of  repose,  if  not  of  comfort ;  and 
those  who  have  to  call  on  native  Americans,  even 
occasionally,  for  services  of  a  quasi-personal  char- 
acter, such  as  those  of  expressmen,  hotel  clerks, 
plumbers,  we  believe  are  anxious  to  make  their  in- 
tercourse with  these  gentlemen  as  brief  as  possi- 
ble. Most  expressmen  are  natives,  and  are  free- 
men of  intelligence  and  capacity,  but  they  carry 
jour  trunk  into  your  hall  with  the  air  of  convicts 
doing  forced  labor  for  a  tyrannical  jailer.  If  the 
spirit  in  which  they  discharge  their  duties — and 
they  are  specimens  of  a  large  class — were  to  make 
its  way  into  our  kitchens,  society  would  go  to  pieces. 


66  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

In  short,  Bridget  is  the  legitimate  product  of 
our  economical,  political,  and  moral  condition. 
We  have  called  her,  in  our  extremity,  to  do  duties 
for  which  she  is  not  trained,  and  having  got  her 
here  have  surrounded  her  with  influences  and 
ideas  which  American  society  has  busied  itself  for 
fifty  years  in  fostering  and  spreading,  and  which, 
taking  hold  of  persons  in  her  stage  of  development, 
work  mental  and  moral  ruin.  The  things  which 
American  life  and  manners  preach  to  her  are  not 
patience,  sober-mindedness,  faithfulness,  diligence, 
and  honesty,  and  eagerness  for  physical  enjoy- 
ment. Whenever  the  sound  of  the  new  gospel 
which  is  to  win  the  natives  back  to  the  ancient 
and  noble  ways  is  heard  in  the  land,  it  is  fair  to 
expect  that  it  will  not  find  her  ears  wholly  closed, 
and  that  when  the  altar  of  duty  is  again  set  up  by 
her  employers,  she  will  lay  on  it  attractive  beef- 
steaks, potatoes  done  to  a  turn,  make  libations  of 
delicious  soup,  and  will  display  remarkable  fertil- 
ity in  "  sweets,"  and  an  extreme  fondness  for  wash- 
ing, and  learn  to  grow  old  in  one  family. 


JOHN  STUAKT  MILL 

MR.  MILL  was,  in  many  respects,  one  of  the  most 
singular  men  ever  produced  by  English  society. 
His  father  was  a  prominent  member  of  the  small 
sect  or  coterie  of  Benthamites,  whose  attempts  to 
reform  the  world,  during  the  whole  of  the  earlier 
part  of  the  present  century,  furnished  abundant 
matter  for  ridicule  to  the  common  run  of  politi- 
cians and  social  philosophers  ;  and  this  ridicule 
was  heightened,  as  the  years  rolled  on,  by  the  ex- 
traordinary jargon  which  their  master  adopted  for 
the  communication  of  his  discoveries  to  the  world. 
The  author  of  the  "Defence  of  Usury,"  of  the 
"Fragment  on  Government,"  and  of  the  "Book  of 
Fallacies,"  had,  however,  secured  a  reputation 
very  early  in  his  career  which  his  subsequent  ec- 
centricities could  not  shake,  but  the  first  attempts 
of  his  disciples  to  catch  the  public  ear  were  not 
fortunate.  Macaulay's  smart  review  of  James 
Mill's  book  on  "  Government "  gives  a  very  fail- 
expression  to  the  common  feeling  about  them  in 
English  literary  and  political  circles  during  John 


68  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

Stuart's  boyhood.  About  the  value  of  the  father's 
labors  as  a  mental  philosopher  there  are  of  course 
a  variety  of  opinions,  but  he  gave  two  proofs  of 
capacity  for  the  practical  work  of  life  which  there 
was  no  gainsaying.  He  came  to  London  an  ob- 
scure man  of  humble  origin,  but  managed,  with- 
out ever  having  been  in  India,  and  at  a  period 
when  authors  were  held  in  much  less  esteem  by 
politicians  than  they  were  at  a  later  period,  to  pro- 
duce such  an  impression  of  his  knowledge  of  In- 
dian affairs,  by  his  elaborate  history  of  that  coun- 
try, on  the  minds  of  the  Directors  of  the  Company, 
that  they  gave  him  an  important  office  in  the  In- 
dia House,  and  this,  too,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
he  lived  in  a  circle  generally  considered  visionary 
— answering,  in  fact,  in  some  degree  to  what  we 
call  the  "  long-haired  people."  Besides  this,  he 
himself  personally  gave  his  son  an  education  which 
made  him,  perhaps,  all  things  considered,  the 
most  accomplished  man  of  his  age,  and  without 
help  from  the  universities  or  any  other  institution 
of  learning.  The  son  grew  up  with  a  profound 
reverence  for  his  father  as  a  scholar  and  thinker, 
and  rarely  lost  an  opportunity  of  expressing  it, 
though,  curiously  enough,  he  began  very  early  to 
look  on  Benthani,  the  head  of  the  school,  with  a 
critical  eye.  The  young  man's  course  was,  how- 
ever, still  more  remarkable  than  the  father's. 


JOHN  STUART  MILL  69 

Although  brought  up  in  a  narrow  coterie  holding 
peculiar  and  somewhat  unpopular  opinions,  and 
displaying,  from  his  first  entrance  in  life,  as  in- 
tense hostility  as  it  was  in  his  nature  to  feel 
against  anything,  against  the  English  universities 
as  then  organized  and  conducted,  though  they 
were  the  centre  of  English  culture  and  indeed  one 
might  say  of  intellectual  activity,  he  saw  himself, 
before  he  reached  middle  life,  the  most  potent  in- 
fluence known  to  educated  Englishmen,  and  per- 
haps that  which  has  most  contributed  to  the  late 
grave  changes  in  English  public  opinion  on  sev- 
eral of  the  leading  social  and  political  problems. 
Indeed,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  his  writings 
produced  a  veritable  debacle  in  the  English  mind. 
The  younger  generation  were  a  good  deal  stirred 
by  Carlyle  ;  but  Carlyle,  after  all,  only  woke  peo- 
ple up,  and  made  them  look  out  of  the  window  to 
see  what  was  the  matter,  after  which  most  of  them 
went  to  bed  again  and  slept  comfortably.  His 
cries  were  rather  too  inarticulate  to  furnish  any- 
thing like  a  new  gospel,  and  he  never  took  hold 
of  the  intellectual  class.  But  Mill  did.  The 
"  Logic  "  and  "  Political  Economy,"  as  reinforced 
and  expounded  by  his  earlier  essays,  were  gener- 
ally accepted  by  the  younger  men  as  the  teach- 
ings of  a  real  master,  and  even  those  who  fully  ac- 
cepted neither  his  mental  philosophy  nor  his 


70  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

social  economy,  acknowledged  that  the  day  of  old 
things  was  passing  away  under  his  preaching. 
His  method,  however,  as  applied  to  politics,  was 
not  original — in  fact,  it  was  Bentham's. 

Bentham,  who  was  perhaps,  in  the  field  of  juris- 
prudence, the  most  destructive  critic  that  ever  ap- 
peared, had  the  merit  which  in  his  day  was  some- 
what novel  among  reformers,  and  marked  him  out 
as  something  very  different  from  Continental  radi- 
cals— of  being  also  highly  constructive.  Indeed, 
his  labors  in  providing  substitutes  for  what  he 
sought  to  overthrow  are  among  the  most  curious, 
and,  we  might  add,  valuable  monuments  of  human 
industry  and  ingenuity.  His  proposed  reforms 
were  based,  too,  on  a  theory  of  human  nature 
which  differed  from  that  in  use  among  a  large 
number  of  radicals  in  our  day  in  being  perfectly 
sound,  that  is,  in  perfect  accordance  with  observed 
facts,  as  far  as  it  went.  But  it  did  not  go  nearly 
far  enough.  It  did  not  embrace  the  whole  of  hu- 
man nature,  or  even  the  greater  part  of  it,  and  for 
the  simple  reason,  which  Mr.  Mill  himself  has 
pointed  out  in  his  analysis  of  Bentham's  character, 
that  its  author  was  almost  entirely  wanting  in 
sympathy  and  imagination.  A  very  large  propor- 
tion of  the  springs  of  human  action  were  unknown 
or  incomprehensible  to  him. 

The   result   was   that,  although   he    exerted   a 


JOHN  STUART  MILL  71 

powerful  influence  on  English  law  reform  by  his 
exposure  of  specific  abuses,  he  made  little  impres- 
sion on  English  sociology,  properly  so  called. 
This  was  in  part  due  to  his  narrowness  of  view, 
and  in  part  to  the  absence  of  an  interpreter,  none 
of  his  followers  having  attempted  to  put  his  wis- 
dom into  readable  shape,  except  Dumont,  and  he 
only  partially  and  in  French.  The  application  of 
his  method  to  the  work  of  general  reform  was  in- 
deed left  to  Mr.  Mill,  who  brought  to  the  task  an 
amount  of  culture  to  which  Bentham  could  make 
no  claim,  and  a  large  share  of  the  sympathy  of 
which  there  was  also  so  little  in  Bentham's  com- 
position, and  a  style  which,  for  expository  and 
didactic  purposes,  has  perhaps  never  been  sur- 
passed. Moreover,  Mr.  Mill  lost  no  time,  as  most 
men  do,  in  maturing.  He  was  a  full-blown  philos- 
opher at  twenty-five,  and  discourses  in  his  earliest 
essays  with  almost  the  same  measure,  circumspec- 
tion, and  gravity  exhibited  in  the  latest  of  his 
works,  and  with  all  the  Benthamite  precision  and 
attention  to  limitations. 

He  was,  however,  wanting,  as  his  master  was,  in 
imagination,  and  wanting,  too,  in  what  we  may  call, 
though  not  in  any  bad  sense,  the  animal  side  of 
man's  nature.  He  suffered  in  his  treatment  of  all 
the  questions  of  the  day  from  excess  of  culture  and 
deficiency  of  blood.  He  understood  and  allowed 


72  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

for  men's  errors  of  judgment  and  for  their  ignor- 
ance, and  for  their  sloth  and  indifference;  but  of 
appreciation  of  the  force  of  their  passions  his 
speculations  contain  little  sign.  For  instance,  he 
was  the  first  to  point  out  the  fact  that  the  principle 
of  competition,  the  eager  desire  to  sell,  which  fur- 
nishes the  motive  power  of  the  English  and  Ameri- 
can social  organization,  is  almost  unknown  and 
unfelt  among  the  greater  part  of  mankind,  but  his 
remedy  for  redundancy  of  population,  and  his 
lamentations  over  "  the  subjection  of  women,"  are 
those  of  a  recluse  or  a  valetudinarian. 

His  influence  as  a  political  philosopher  may  be 
said  to  have  stood  highest  after  the  appearance 
of  the  "Political  Economy."  He  had,  then,  per- 
haps the  most  remarkable  following  of  hard-headed 
men  which  any  English  philosopher  was  ever  able 
to  show.  But  the  reverence  of  his  disciples  waned 
somewhat  rapidly  after  he  began  to  take  a  more 
active  part  in  the  treatment  of  the  questions  of 
the  day.  His  "  representative  government,"  valu- 
able as  it  was  as  a  philosophical  discussion,  of- 
fered no  solution  of  the  problem  then  pressing  on 
the  public  minds  in  England,  which  bitter  Radi- 
cals or  Conservatives  could  consider  comforting. 
The  plan  of  having  the  number  of  a  man's  votes 
regulated  by  his  calling  and  intelligence  was 
thoroughly  Benthamite.  It  was  as  complete  and 


JOHN  STUART  MILL  73 

logical  as  a  proposition  in  Euclid,  and  in  1825 
would  have  looked  attractive ;  but  in  1855  the 
power  of  doing  this  nice  work  had  completely 
passed  out  of  everybody's  hands  —  indeed,  the 
desire  of  political  perfection  had  greatly  abated. 
His  lofty  and  eloquent  plaints  on  the  decline  of 
social  freedom  helped  to  strengthen  the  charge 
of  want  of  practicalness,  which  in  our  day  is  so 
injurious  to  a  man's  political  influence,  and  when 
he  entered  Parliament,  although  he  disappointed 
none  of  those  who  best  understood  him,  the  out- 
side multitude,  who  had  begun  to  look  on  him  as 
?„  prophet,  were  somewhat  chagrined  that  he  was 
not  readier  in  parrying  the  thrusts  of  the  trained 
gladiators  of  the  House  of  Commons.  It  was  the 
book  on  the  "  Subjection  of  Women,"  however, 
which  most  shook  the  allegiance  of  his  more 
educated  followers,  because  it  was  marked  by  the 
widest  departures  from  his  own  rules  of  thinking. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  find  any  justification  in 
his  other  works  for  the  doctrine  that  women  are 
inferior  to  men  for  the  same  reason  that  male  serfs 
are  inferior  to  their  masters.  His  refusal  to  con- 
sider difference  of  sex  as  even  one  probable  cause 
of  women's  inferiority  to  men  in  mental  and  moral 
characteristics,  was  something  for  which  few  of 
his  disciples  were  prepared,  or  which  they  ever 
got  over  ;  and  indeed  his  whole  treatment  of  the 


74  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

question  of  sex  showed,  in  the  opinion  of  many,  a 
constitutional  incapacity  to  deal  with  the  gravest 
problems  of  social  economy. 

The  standing  of  Mr.  Mill  as  a  mental  philoso- 
pher appears  to  be  very  differently  estimated  by 
late  critics  and  opponents  and  by  himself,  whether 
we  consider  the  extent  of  his  influence,  or  the  re- 
lations of  his  doctrines  to  his  nation  and  time ; 
and  there  is  a  most  singular  inversion  in  these 
estimates  of  what  we  should  naturally  expect  from 
friend  and  foe — an  estimate  of  Mill's  position  and 
influence  by  his  opponents,  which,  compared  to 
his  own,  seems  greatly  exaggerated.  For  example, 
Dr.  McCosh,  a  thorough-going  opponent,  regards 
Mill's  influence  as  the  most  active  and  effective 
philosophical  force  now  alive  in  Great  Britain, 
the  strongest  current  of  philosophic  thought  even 
at  Oxford ;  and  M.  Taiue,  who  some  years  ago  dis- 
covered at  Oxford  that  the  British  nation  was  not 
wanting  in  "general  ideas"  or  principles  in  its 
modes  of  thought  above  the  requirements  of  the 
accountant  and  assayer,  found  these  principles  in 
a  really  living  English  philosophy,  which  has 
brought  forth  one  of  M.  Taine's  most  elaborate 
critical  studies  in  his  work  on  "  Intelligence."  In 
contrast  with  these  estimates,  we  have  from  Mr. 
Mill  himself  the  opinion,  in  a  letter  to  M.  Taine, 
that  his  views  are  not  especially  English,  and  that 


JOHN  STUART  MILL  ,  75 

they  have  not  been  so  since  the  philosophical  re- 
action in  Scotland,  Germany,  and  later  in  Eng- 
land, against  Hume ;  that  when  his  "  System  of 
Logic  "  was  written  he  "  stood  almost  alone  in  his 
opinions ;  and  though  they  have  met  with  a  degree 
of  sympathy  which  he  by  no  means  expected,  we 
may  still  count  in  England  twenty  a  priori  and 
spiritualist  philosophers  for  every  partisan  of  the 
doctrine  of  Experience." 

This  estimate  of  his  own  influence  and  of  the 
importance  to  metaphysical  discussion  at  the  pres- 
ent time  of  the  philosophy  he  "  adopted  "  is  en- 
titled to  much  more  consideration  than  ought  in 
general  to  be  allowed  for  an  opinion  inspired  by 
the  ambition,  the  enthusiasm,  the  disappointments, 
or  even  the  modesty  of  a  philosophical  thinker. 
Nevertheless,  the  far  different  opinion  of  his  stand- 
ing as  a  metaphysician  which  his  critics  entertain 
is  undoubtedly  more  correct,  though  in  a  sense 
which  was  not  so  clearly  apparent  to  him.  They 
see  clearly  that  a  philosophy  of  which  he  was  not 
the  founder,  and  never  pretended  to  be,  has  gained 
through  his  writings  a  hold,  not  only  on  English 
speculation,  but  on  that  of  the  civilized  world, 
which  it  did  not  acquire  even  in  England  when  it 
was  an  especially  English  philosophy,  as  it  was  "in 
the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  from  the 
time  of  Locke  to  that  of  the  reaction  against  Hume." 


76  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

What,  then,  is  it  in  Mill's  philosophical  writings 
that  has  given  him  this  eminence  as  a  thinker  ? 
Two  qualities,  we  think,  very  rarely  combined :  a 
philosophical  style  which  for  clearness  and  co- 
gency has,  perhaps,  never  been  surpassed,  and  a  con- 
scientious painstaking,  with  a  seriousness  of  con- 
viction, and  an  earnestness  of  purpose  which  did 
not  in  general  characterize  the  thinkers  whoso 
views  he  adopted.  It  was  by  bringing  to  the  sup- 
port of  doctrines  previously  regarded  as  irreligious 
a  truly  religious  spirit  that  Mill  acquired  in  part 
the  influence  and  respect  which  have  given  him  his 
eminence  as  a  thinker.  He  thus  redeemed  the 
word  "utility"  and  the  utilitarian  doctrine  of 
morals  from  the  ill  repute  they  had,  for  "the 
greatest  happiness  principle  "  was  with  him  a  re- 
ligious principle.  An  equally  important  part  of 
his  influence  is  doubtless  due  to  the  thoroughness 
of  his  early  training — the  education  received  from 
his  father's  instruction — which,  as  we  have  said, 
has  made  him  truly  regarded  as  the  most  accom- 
plished of  modern  dialecticians. 

To  these  grounds  of  influence  may  be  added,  so 
far  as  his  influence  on  English  thought  is  con- 
cerned, the  fact  that  he  was  not  a  metaphysician 
in  a  positive  fashion,  though  he  dealt  largely  with 
metaphysical  topics.  He  represented  the  almost 
instinctive  aversion  to  metaphysics,  as  such,  which 


JOHN  STUART  MILL  77 

has  characterized  the  English  since  the  time  of 
Newton  and  Locke,  we  might  also  say  since  the 
time  of  Bacon.  Metaphysics,  to  pass  current  in 
England,  has  now  to  be  baptized  and  become  part 
of  the  authoritative  religious  instruction,  else  it  is 
foreign  and  barbarous  to  the  English  matter-of- 
fact  ways  of  thinking.  Mill's  "  System  of  Logic " 
was  not  intended  as  a  system  of  philosophy  in  the 
German,  French,  or  even  Scotch  sense  of  the  term. 
It  is  not  through  the  a  priori  establishment  or 
refutation  of  highest  principles  that  experiential, 
inductive,  fact-proven  principles  of  science  are  re- 
garded or  tested  by  the  unmetaphysical  English 
mind.  Metaphysical  doctrines  prevail,  it  is  true,  in 
England,  to  the  extent,  probably,  that  Mr.  Mill  esti- 
mates— twenty  to  one  of  its  thinkers  holding  to 
some  such  views.  Yet  it  would  be  a  misconcep- 
tion to  suppose  these  to  be  products  of  modern 
English  thought.  They  are  rather  preserves,  ta- 
booed, interdicted  to  discussion,  not  the  represen- 
tatives of  its  living  thought. 

Mr.  Mill  estimated  the  worth  of  contemporary 
thinkers  in  accordance  with  this  almost  instinctive 
distrust  of  rational  "  illumination  ; "  setting  Arch- 
bishop Whately,  for  example,  as  a  thinker,  above 
Sir  W.  Hamilton,  for  his  services  to  philosophy, 
on  account  of  "  the  number  of  true  and  valuable 
thoughts  "  which  he  originated  and  put  into  circu- 


78  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

lation,  not  as  parts  of  a  system,  but  as  independent 
truths  of  sagacious  or  painstaking  observation  and 
reflection.  It  is  by  such  a  standard  that  Mr.  Mill 
would  doubtless  wish  to  be  judged,  and  by  it  he 
would  be  justly  placed  above  all,  or  nearly  all,  of  his 
contemporaries.  Nevertheless,  as  a  conscientious 
student  of  metaphysics  he  held  in  far  higher  es- 
teem than  is  shown  in  general  by  English  thinkers 
the  powers  peculiar  to  the  metaphysician — the 
ability  and  disposition  to  follow  out  into  their  con- 
sequences, and  to  concatenate  in  a  system  the  as- 
sumption of  a  priori  principles.  Descartes,  Leib- 
nitz, Comte,  and,  as  an  exceptional  English  thinker, 
even  Mr.  Spencer,  receive  commendation  from  Mm 
on  this  account.  It  is  clear,  however,  that  his  re- 
spect for  this  talent  was  of  the  sort  which  does  not 
aspire  to  imitate  what  is  admired. 


PANICS 

IT  is  impossible  to  see,  much  less  experience,  a 
financial  panic  without  an  almost  appalling  con- 
sciousness that  a  new  and  terrible  form  of  danger 
and  distress  has  been  added  in  comparatively 
recent  times  to  the  list  of  those  by  which  human 
life  is  menaced  or  perplexed.  Any  one  who  stood 
on  Wall  Street,  or  in  the  gallery  of  the  Stock  Ex- 
,  change  last  Thursday  and  Friday  and  Saturday 
(1873),  and  saw  the  mad  terror,  we  might  almost 
say  the  brute  terror  like  that  by  which  a  horse  is 
devoured  who  has  a  pair  of  broken  shafts  hanging 
to  his  heels,  or  a  dog  flying  from  a  tin  saucepan 
attached  to  his  tail,  with  which  great  crowds  of  men 
rushed  to  and  fro,  trying  to  get  rid  of  their  prop- 
erty, almost  begging  people  to  take  it  from  them 
at  any  price,  could  hardly  avoid  feeling  that  a  new 
plague  had  been  sent  among  men  ;  that  there  was 
an  impalpable,  invisible  force  in  the  air,  robbing 
them  of  their  wits,  of  which  philosophy  had  not  as 
yet  dreamt.  No  dog  was  ever  so  much  alarmed 
by  the  clatter  of  the  saucepan  as  hundreds  seemed 
to  be  by  the  possession  of  really  valuable  and  div- 


80  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

idencl-paying  securities  ;  and  no  horse  was  ever 
more  reckless  in  extricating  himself  from  the 
debris  of  a  broken  carriage  than  these  swarms  of 
acute  and  shrewd  traders  in  divesting  themselves 
of  their  possessions.  Hundreds  must  really,  to 
judge  by  their  conduct,  have  beep  so  confused  by 
terror  and  anxiety  as  to  be  unable  to  decide  whether 
they  desired  to  have  or  not  to  have,  to  be  poor  or 
rich.  If  a  Roman  or  a  man  of  the  Middle  Ages 
had  been  suddenly  brought  into  view  of  the  scene, 
he  would  have  concluded  without  hesitation  that  a 
ruthless  invader  was  coming  down  the  island ;  that 
his  advanced  guard  was  momentarily  expected ; 
and  that  anybody  found  by  his  forces  in  posses- 
sion of  Western  Union,  or  Harlem,  or  Lake  Shore, 
or  any  other  paying  stock  or  bond,  would  be  sub- 
jected to  cruel  tortures,  if  not  put  to  death.  For 
neither  the  Roman  nor  the  Mediaeval  could  under- 
stand a  rich  man's  being  terrified  by  anything  but 
armed  violence.  Seneca  enumerates  as  the  three 
great  sources  of  anxiety  in  life  the  fear  of  want,  of 
disease,  and  of  oppression  by  the  powerful,  and  ho 
pronounces  the  last  the  greatest.  If  he  had  seen 
Wall-Street  brokers  and  bankers  last  week  trying 
to  get  rid  of  stocks  and  bonds,  he  could  not  of 
course  have  supposed  that  they  were  poor  or  feared 
poverty ;  he  would  have  judged  from  their  physical 
activity  that  they  were  in  perfect  health,  so  that 


PANICS  81 

he  would  have  been  driven  to  the  conclusion  that 
some  barbarian  host,  commanded  by  Sitting  Bull 
or  Bed  Cloud,  was  entering  the  city,  and  was 
breathing  out  threatenings  and  slaughter  against 
the  owners  of  personal  property.  If  you  had  tried 
to  explain  to  him  that  there  was  no  conqueror  at 
the  gates,  that  the  fear  of  violence  was  almost  un- 
known in  our  lives,  that  each  man  in  that  strug- 
gling crowd  enjoyed  an  amount  of  security  against 
force  in  all  its  forms  which  no  Boman  Senator 
could  ever  count  upon,  and  that  the  terror  he  wit- 
nessed was  caused  by  precisely  the  same  agency 
as  the"  flight  of  an  army  before  it  has  been  beaten, 
or,  in  other  words,  by  "  panic,"  he  would  have  gazed 
at  you  in  incredulous  amazement.  He  would  have 
said  that  panic  in  an  army  was  caused  by  the 
sudden  dissolution  of  the  bonds  of  discipline,  by 
each  soldier's  losing  his  confidence  that  his  com- 
rades and  his  officers  would  stand  their  ground ; 
but  these  traders,  he  would  have  added,  are  not 
subject  to  discipline  ;  they  do  not  belong  to  an 
organization  of  any  kind  ;  each  buys  and  sells  for 
himself ;  he  has  his  property  there  in  that  tin  box, 
and  if  nobody  is  going  to  rob  him  what  is  frighten- 
ing him  ?  Why  is  he  pale  and  trembling  ?  Why 
does  he  run  and  shout  and  weep,  and  ask  people 
to  give  him  a  trifle,  only  a  trifle,  for  all  he  pos- 
sesses and  let  him  go  ? 
6 


82  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

If  you  were  then  to  set  about  explaining  to 
Seneca  that  the  way  the  god  Pan  worked  confusion 
in  our  day  in  the  commercial  world  was  by  de- 
stroying "  credit,"  you  would  find  yourself  brought 
suddenly  face  to  face  with  one  of  the  most  striking 
differences  between  ancient  and  modern,  or,  even  as 
we  have  said,  mediaeval  society.  The  most  promi- 
nent and  necessary  accompaniment  or  incident  of 
property  in  the  ancient  world  was  possession. 
What  a  man  owned  he  held.  His  wealth  was  in  his 
farm,  or  his  house,  or  his  granary,  or  his  ships.  He 
could  hardly  separate  the  idea  of  property  from  that 
of  possession,  and  the  state  of  society  strengthened 
the  association.  The  frugal  man  hoarded,  and 
when  he  was  terrified  he  buried  his  money,  a 
practice  to  which  we  owe  the  preservation  of  the 
greater  portion  of  the  old  coins  now  in  our  collec- 
tions. The  influence  of  this  sense  of  insecurity, 
of  the  constant  fear  of  invasion  or  violence,  lasted 
long  enough  in  all  Continental  countries,  as  Mr. 
Bagehot  has  recently  pointed  out,  to  prevent  the 
establishment  of  banks  of  issue  until  very  lately. 
The  prospect  of  war  was  so  constantly  in  men's 
minds  that  no  bank  could  make  arrangements  for 
the  run  which  would  surely  follow  the  outbreak  of 
hostilities,  and,  in  view  of  this  contingency,  no- 
body would  be  willing  to  hold  paper  promises  to 
pay  in  lieu  of  gold  and  silver. 


PANICS  83 

It  is  therefore  in  England  and  America,  the  two 
countries  possessing  not  only  most  commercial 
enterprise,  but  most  security  against  invasion,  that 
the  paper  money  has  come  into  earliest  and  widest 
use.  To  the  paper  of  the  banks  have  been  added 
the  checks  and  bills  of  exchange  of  private  individ- 
uals, until  money  proper  plays  a  greatly  diminish- 
ing part  in  the  operations  of  commerce.  Goods 
are  exchanged  and  debts  paid  by  a  system  of  bal- 
ancing claims  against  claims,  which  really  has 
almost  ceased  to  rest  on  money  at  all.  So  that  a 
man  may  be  a  very  rich  man  in  our  day,  and  have 
really  nothing  to  show  for  his  wealth  whatever. 
You  go  to  his  house,  and  you  find  nothing  but  a 
lot  of  shabby  furniture.  The  only  thing  there 
which  Seneca  would  have  called  wealth  is  perhaps 
his  wife's  jewels,  which  would  not  bring  a  few 
thousand  dollars.  You  think  his  money  must  be 
in  the  bank,  but  you  go  there  with  him  and  find 
that  all  he  has  there  is  a  page  on  the  ledger  bear- 
ing his  name,  with  a  few  figures  on  it.  The  bank 
bills  which  you  see  lying  about,  and  which  look  a 
little  like  money,  are  not  only  not  money  in  the 
sense  Seneca  understood  the  term,  but  they  do  not 
represent  over  a  third  of  what  the  bank  owes  to 
various  people.  You  go  to  some  safe-deposit 
vaults,  thinking  that  it  is  perhaps  there  he  keeps 
his  valuables,  but  all  you  find  is  a  mass  of  papers 


84  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

signed  by  Thomas  Smith  or  John  Jones,  declaring 
that  he  is  entitled  to  so  many  shares  of  some  far- 
off  bank,  or  that  some  railroad  will  pay  him  a  cer- 
tain sum  some  thirty  years  hence.  In  fact,  looked 
at  with  Roman  eyes,  our  millionaire  seems  to  be 
possessed  of  little  or  nothing,  and  likely  to  be 
puzzled  about  his  daily  bread. 

Now,  this  wonderful  change  in  the  character 
and  incidents  of  property  may  be  said  to  be  the 
work  of  the  last  century,  and  it  may  be  said  to 
consist  in  the  substitution  of  an  agency  wholly 
moral  for  an  agency  wholly  material  in  the  Avork 
of  exchange  and  distribution.  For  the  giving  and 
receiving  of  gold  and  silver  we  have  substituted 
neither  more  nor  less  than  faith  in  the  honesty 
and  industry  and  capacity  of  our  fellow-men. 
There  is  hardly  one  of  us  who  does  not  literally 
live  by  faith.  We  lay  up  fortunes,  marry,  eat, 
drink,  travel,  and  bequeath,  almost  without  ever 
handling  a  cent ;  and  the  best  reason  which 
ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred  of  us  can  give 
for  feeling  secure  against  want,  or  having  the 
means  of  enjoyment  or  of  charity,  is  not  the  pos- 
session of  anything  of  real  value,  but  his  confi- 
dence that  certain  thousands  of  his  fellow-creatures, 
whom  he  has  never  seen  and  never  expects  to  see, 
scattered,  it  may  be,  over  the  civilized  world,  will 
keep  their  promises,  and  do  their  daily  work  with 


PANICS  85 

fidelity  and  efficiency.  This  faith  is  every  year 
being  made  to  carry  a  greater  and  greater  load. 
The  transactions  which  rest  on  it  increase  every 
year  in  magnitude  and  complexity.  It  has  to  ex- 
tend itself  every  year  over  a  larger  portion  of  the 
earth's  surface,  and  to  include  a  greater  variety  of 
race  and  creed  and  custom.  London  and  Paris 
and  Berlin  and  Vienna  now  tremble  when  New 
York  is  alarmed.  We  have,  in  short,  to  believe 
every  year  in  a  greater  and  greater  number  of 
people,  and  to  depend  for  our  daily  bread  on 
the  successful  working  of  vast  combinations,  in 
which  human  character  is,  after  all,  the  main  ele- 
ment. 

The  consequence  is  that,  when  for  any  reason  a 
shade  of  doubt  comes  over  men's  minds  that  the 
combination  is  not  working,  that  the  machine  is 
at  some  point  going  to  give  way,  that  somebody 
is  not  playing  his  part  fairly,  the  solid  ground 
seems  to  shake  under  their  feet,  and  we  have  some 
of  the  phenomena  resulting  from  an  earthquake, 
and  among  others  blind  terror.  But  to  anyone 
who  understands  what  this  new  social  force,  Credit, 
is,  and  the  part  it  plays  in  human  affairs,  the  won- 
der is,  not  that  it  gives  way  so  seldom,  but  that 
it  stands  so  firm  ;  that  these  hundreds  of  millions 
of  laborers,  artisans,  shopkeepers,  merchants,  bank- 
ers, and  manufacturers  hold  so  firmly  from  day 


86 

to  day  the  countless  engagements  into  which  they 
enter,  and  that  each  recurring  year  the  result  of 
the  prodigious  effort  which  is  now  put  forth  in  the 
civilized  world  in  the  work  of  production  should 
be  distributed  with  so  much  accuracy  and  honesty, 
and,  on  the  whole,  with  so  much  wise  adjustment 
to  the  value  of  each  man's  contributions  to  civil- 
ization. 

There  is  one  fact,  however,  which  throws  around 
credit,  as  around  so  many  others  of  the  influences 
by  which  our  lives  are  shaped,  a  frightful  mystery. 
Its  very  strength  helps  to  work  ruin.  The  more 
we  believe  in  our  fellow-toilers,  and  the  more  they 
do  to  warrant  our  belief,  the  more  we  encourge 
them  to  work,  the  more  we  excite  their  hopeful- 
ness ;  and  out  of  this  hopefulness  come  "  panics  " 
and  "  crashes."  Prosperity  breeds  credit,  and 
credit  stimulates  enterprise,  and  enterprise  em- 
barks in  labors  which,  about  every  ten  years  in 
England,  and  every  twenty  years  in  this  country, 
it  is  found  that  the  world  is  not  ready  to  pay  for. 
Panics  have  occurred  in  England  in  1797,  1807, 
1817,  1826,  1837,  1847,  1857,  and  there  was  very 
near  being  a  very  severe  one  in  1866.  In  this  coun- 
try we  have  had  them  in  1815, 1836, 1857,  and  1877, 
and  by  panics  we  do  not  mean  such  local  whirl- 
winds as  have  desolated  Wall  Street,  but  wide- 
spread commercial  crises,  affecting  all  branches  of 


PANICS  87 

business.  This  periodicity  is  ascribed,  and  with 
much  plausibility,  to  the  fact  that  inasmuch  as 
panics  are  the  result  of  certain  mental  conditions, 
they  recur  as  soon  as  the  experience  of  the  pre- 
vious one  has  lost  its  influence,  or,  in  other  words, 
as  often  as  a  new  generation  comes  into  the  man- 
agement of  affairs,  which  is  about  every  ten  years 
in  the  commercial  world  both  in  England  and 
here.  The  fact  that  this  country  seems  to  be  only 
half  as  liable  to  them  as  England,  is  perhaps  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  extent  of  our  resources,  and 
the  greater  ratio  of  increase  of  population  make  it 
much  harder  to  overdo  in  the  work  of  production 
here  than  in  England,  and  to  this  must  be  added 
the  greater  strength  of  nerves  produced  by  greater 
hopefulness.  In  spite  of  the  enormous  abundance 
of  British  capital  and  the  rashness  of  the  owners 
in  making  investments,  there  hangs  over  the  Lon- 
don money  market  a  timidity  and  doubtfulness 
about  the  future  which  is  unknown  on  this  side 
of  the  water,  and  which  very  slight  accidents  de- 
velop into  distrust  and  terror. 

Outside  those  who  are  actually  engaged  in  a 
financial  panic — such  as  brokers,  bankers,  mer- 
chants and  manufacturers,  who  have  loans  to  pay 
or  receive,  or  acceptances  falling  due,  and  who  are 
therefore  too  busy  and  too  sorely  beset  to  moralize 
on  it  or  look  at  it  objectively,  as  the  philosophers 


88  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

say — there  is  a  large  body  of  persons  who  are  not 
immediately  affected  by  it,  such  as  professional 
men,  owners  of  secure  investments,  persons  in 
receipt  of  well-assured  salaries,  ministers,  news- 
paper writers,  speculative  economists,  financiers, 
and  farmers,  to  whom  it  is  a  source  of  secret  en- 
joyment. They  are  obliged,  out  of  sympathy  with 
their  neighbors,  to  look  blue,  and  probably  few  of 
them  are  entirely  exempt  from  the  general  anx- 
iety about  the  future,  but,  nevertheless,  they  are 
on  the  whole  rather  gratified  than  otherwise  by 
the  thing's  having  happened.  In  the  first  place, 
all  those  persons  who  give  their  attention  to  the 
currency  question  are  divided  into  two  great 
schools  —  the  paper  men  and  the  hard-money  men  ; 
and  every  panic  affords  each  of  them  what  it  con- 
siders a  legitimate  ground  of  triumph.  The  paper 
men  say  that  the  crisis  is  due  to  failure  to  issue 
more  paper  at  the  proper  moment,  and  the  hard- 
money  men  ascribe  it  to  the  irredeemability  of 
what  is  already  issued;  and  each  side  chuckles 
over  the  convulsion  as  a  startling  confirmation  of 
its  views,  and  goes  about  calling  attention  to  it 
almost  gleefully.  There  is  a  similar  division  on 
the  banking  question.  Indeed  the  feud  between 
the  friends  of  free  banking  and  restricted  banking 
is  fiercer  than  that  between  the  two  currency 
schools,  and  has  raged  longer,  and  every  mone- 


PANICS  89 

tarf  crisis  feeds  the  flame.  It  is  maintained,  on 
the  one  hand,  that  if  banks  were  let  alone  by  the 
state  their  issues  would  be  proportioned  to  the 
exact  wants  of  business ;  and,  on  the  other,  that 
if  the  state  would  only  restrict  them  more  rigidly 
business  would  be  kept  within  proper  limits,  and 
all  would  go  well.  Each  disputant  draws  from  a 
panic  about  the  same  amount  of  support  for  his 
views,  because  in  the  great  variety  of  circum- 
stances which  surround  it  there  are  always  some 
which  favor  any  theory  of  its  origin.  In  one 
thing,  however,  both  sets  of  observers  are  apt  to 
agree  thoroughly,  and  that  is  in  believing  the 
"  thing  will  not  blow  over,"  and  that  "  we  are  go- 
ing to  feel  it  for  a  long  time."  They  have  long 
foreseen  it,  and  have  only  been  surprised  that  it 
did  not  come  sooner ;  and  they  lower  their  voices 
to  a  hoarse  whisper  while  telling  you  this. 

But  there  is  no  class  of  observers  which  extracts 
so  much  solid  comfort  from  a  panic  as  that  large 
body  of  social  philosophers  who  are  hostile  to 
luxury,  and  believe  that  the  world  is  going  to  the 
dogs  through  self-indulgence.  It  may  even  be 
said  that  two-thirds  of  the  community,  or  indeed 
all  except  the  very  few,  hold  this  opinion  with  a 
greater  or  less  degree  of  strength.  The  farmers 
hold  it  strongly  with  regard  to  the  city  people, 
the  artisans  with  regard  to  merchants,  bankers, 


90  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

brokers,  and  manufacturers,  and  among  the  latter 
nearly  every  man  is  inclined  to  it  with  regard  to 
persons  of  more  means  than  himself.  Moreover, 
it  would  probably  astonish  us  if  we  knew  how 
large  was  the  number  of  those  who  fancy  that  their 
more  well-to-do  neighbors,  if  they  do  not  belong 
to  the  category  of  millionaires,  are  living  beyond 
their  means.  Every  man  whose  own  means  are 
small,  or  even  moderate,  finds  himself  rather  hard 
put  to  it  to  make  both  ends  meet,  and  is  con- 
stantly harassed  by  desires  which  he  is  unable  to 
gratify.  "When  he  sees  others  gratifying  them, 
his  self-love  drives  him  often  unconsciously  into 
ascribing  it  to  recklessness  and  improvidence. 
Very  close  people,  too,  who  have  a  constitutional 
repugnance  to  spending  money  freely  for  any 
purpose,  and  especially  for  purposes  of  personal 
enjoyment,  can  hardly  persuade  themselves  that 
other  persons  who  do  so,  spend  it  honestly.  And 
then  behind  these  come  the  large  army  of  lovers 
of  simplicity  and  frugality  on  moral  and  religious 
grounds,  who  believe  that  material  luxury  con- 
tains a  snare  for  the  soul,  and  that  true  happiness 
and  real  virtue  are  not  to  be  found  in  gilded 
saloons.  They  write  to  the  newspapers  denounc- 
ing the  reluctance  of  young  people  to  marry  on 
small  incomes,  and  urging  girls  to  begin  life  as 
their  mothers  began  it,  and  despise  the  silly  chat- 


PANICS  91 

ter  of  those  who  think  luxurious   surroundings 
more  important  than  the  union  of  hearts. 

The  occurrence  of  a  panic  fills  the  breasts  of  all 
these  with  various  degrees  of  rejoicing.  They  al- 
ways take  a  very  dark  view  of  it,  and  laugh  con- 
temptuously at  those  who  consider  it  a  "Wall- 
Street  flurry,"  or  ascribe  it  to  any  vice  in  the  cur- 
rency or  in  the  banking  system.  Extravagant 
living  they  believe  to  be  at  the  bottom  of  it,  and, 
like  the  hard-money  men,  they  are  only  surprised 
that  it  has  not  come  sooner,  and  they  believe  most 
firmly  that  it  is  going  to  effect  a  sort  of  social  rev- 
olution, and  bring  the  world  more  nearly  to  their 
own  ideal  of  what  it  ought  to  be.  The  amount 
of  "  rottenness  "  which  they  expect  it  to  reveal  is 
always  enormous,  and  they  look  forward  to  the 
exposure  and  the  general  coming-down  of  their 
guilty  neighbors  to  "the  hard  pan"  with  the 
keenest  relish.  They  have  long,  for  instance,  been 
unable  to  imagine  where  the  multitude  of  people 
who  live  in  brown-stone  houses  get  the  money  to 
keep  them.  There  was  something  wrong  about  it, 
they  felt  satisfied,  though  they  could  not  tell  what, 
and  when  the  panic  comes  they  half  fancy  that 
the  murder  will  out,  and  that  there  will  be  a  great 
migration  of  fraudulent  bankrupts  from  Fifth  Ave- 
nue and  its  neighborhood  into  tenement-houses 
on  the  East  and  North  Rivers.  How  Mrs.  Smith, 


93  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

too,  dressed  as  she  did,  and  where  Smith  got  the 
money  to  take  her  to  Sharon  every  summer,  and 
how  Jones  managed  to  entertain  as  he  was  doing, 
have  often  been  puzzling  problems,  which  "the 
crash  "  in  the  money  market  is  at  last  going  to 
solve.  It  is  also  highly  gratifying  to  those  who 
consider  yachting  a  senseless  amusement  to  reflect 
that  the  panic  will  probably  diminish  the  number 
of  yachts,  and  they  even  flatter  themselves  that 
it  may  stop  yachting  in  future,  and  reduce  the 
general  style  of  living  among  rich  young  men. 
"  We  shall  now,"  they  say,  "  have  fewer  fast  horses, 
and  less  champagne,  and  less  gaudy  furniture,  and 
more  honest,  hard  work,  and  plain,  wholesome 
food."  They  accordingly  rejoice  in  the  panic  as  a 
means  adopted  by  Providence  to  bring  a  glutton- 
ous and  ungodly  generation  to  its  senses,  and  lead 
it  back  to  that  state  of  things  which  is  known  as 
"  republican  simplicity." 

The  curious  thing  about  this  expectation  is 
that  it  has  survived  innumerable  disappointments 
without  apparently  losing  any  of  its  vigor.  It 
was  strong  after  1837,  and  strong  after  1857,  and 
stronger  than  ever  after  1861.  The  war  was  surely, 
people  said,  to  bring  back  the  golden  age,  when  all 
the  men  were  prudent,  sober,  and  industrious,  and 
all  the  women  simple,  modest,  and  homekeeping. 
The  war  did  nothing  of  the  kind.  In  fact,  it 


PANICS  93 

left  us  more  extravagant  and  lavish  and  self- 
indulgent  than  ever ;  yet  the  ancient  and  tough 
belief  in  the  purifying  influence  of  a  stringent 
money  market  still  lasts,  and  is  at  this  moment 
cropping  out  in  the  moral  department  of  a  thou- 
sand newspapers. 

The  belief  belongs  to  what  may  be  called  the 
cataclysmal  theory  of  progress,  which  improves 
the  world  by  sudden  starts,  and  clings  so  fondly 
to  liquor-laws,  and  has  profound  faith  in  specific 
remedies  for  moral  and  political  diseases.  What 
commercial  panics  and  great  national  misfortunes 
do  not  do,  particular  bits  of  legislation  are  sure 
to  do.  You  put  something  in  the  Constitution, 
or  forbid  something,  or  lose  a  battle,  or  have  a 
'•'shrinkage  of  values,"  or  have  a  cholera  season, 
and  forthwith  the  community  turns  over  a  new 
leaf,  and  becomes  moral,  economical,  and  sober- 
minded.  We  doubt  whether  this  theory  will  ever 
die  out,  however  much  philosophers  may  preach 
against  it,  or  however  often  facts  may  refute  it, 
because  it  gratifies,  or  promises  to  gratify,  one  of 
the  deepest  longings  of  the  human  heart — the 
desire  which  each  man  feels  to  have  a  great  deal 
of  history  crowded  into  his  own  little  day.  None 
of  us  can  bear  to  quit  the  scene  without  witnessing 
the  solution  of  the  problems  by  which  his  own  life 
has  been  vexed  or  over  which  he  has  long  labored. 


94  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

Indeed  a  great  many  men  would  find  it  impossible 
to  work  with  any  zeal  to  bring  about  results  which 
would  probably  not  be  witnessed  until  they  had 
been  centuries  in  the  tomb. 

We  accordingly  find  that  the  most  eager  re- 
formers are  apt  to  be  those  who  look  for  the 
triumph  of  virtue  by  the  close  of  the  current 
year.  Of  all  dreams  of  eager  reformers,  however, 
there  is  probably  none  more  substantial  than  that 
which  looks  for  a  restoration  of  that  vague  thing 
called  "simplicity  of  manners."  Simplicity  and 
economy  are,  of  course,  relative  terms.  The  luxu- 
rious gentleman  in  the  fourteenth  century  lived 
in  a  way  which  the  well-to-do  artisan  in  our  own 
time  would  not  tolerate;  and  when  we  under- 
take to  carry  people  back  to  ancient  ways  of 
living  we  find  that  there  is  hardly  a  point  short 
of  barbarism  at  which  we  can  consistently  stop. 
A  country  in  which  money  is  easily  made  and 
abounds,  will  be  one  in  which  money  will  always 
be  freely  spent,  and  in  which  personal  comfort 
and  even  display  will  occupy  men's  and  women's 
thoughts  a  great  deal.  We  can  no  more  prevent 
this  than  we  can  prevent  the  growth  of  wealth  it- 
self ;  and  our  duty  is,  instead  of  wasting  our  breath 
in  denouncing  extravagance,  or  hailing  panics  as 
purging  fires,  to  do  what  in  us  lies  to  give  rich 
people  more  taste,  more  conscience,  more  sense  of 


PANICS  95 

responsibility  for  curable  ills,  and  a  keener  relish 
of  the  higher  forms  of  pleasure.  Extravagance — 
or,  in  other  words,  the  waste  of  money  on  sen- 
sual enjoyment,  the  production  of  hideous  furniture 
or  jewelry,  or  of  barbarous  display — has  to  be 
checked  not  by  the  preaching  of  poor  people,  but 
by  the  rich  man's  own  superiority  to  these  things, 
and  his  own  repugnance  for  them.  This  repug- 
nance can  only  be  inspired  by  education,  whether 
that  of  school  and  college,  or  that  of  a  refined  and 
cultivated  social  atmosphere.  Much  would  be 
done  in  this  direction  if  public  opinion  exacted  of 
the  owners  of  large  fortunes  that  they  should  give 
their  sous  the  best  education  the  country  affords  ; 
or,  in  other  words,  send  them  to  college,  instead 
of  setting  them  up  in  the  dry-goods  business  or  the 
grocery  business.  A  man  who  has  made  a  large 
fortune  in  honest  trade  or  industry  has  not  con- 
tributed his  share  to  moral  and  intellectual  inter- 
ests by  merely  making  donations.  It  is  his  duty, 
also,  if  he  leaves  children  behind  him,  to  see  to  it, 
as  far  as  he  can,  that  they  are  men  who  will  be  an 
addition  to  the  general  culture  and  taste  of  the 
nation,  and  who  will  stimulate  its  nobler  ambition, 
raise  its  intellectual  standard,  quicken  its  love  of 
excellence  in  all  fields,  and  deepen  its  faith  in  the 
value  of  things  not  seen. 


THE  ODIUM  PHILOLOGICUM 

OUE  readers  and  those  of  The  Galaxy  are  famil- 
iar with  the  controversy  between  Dr.  Fitzedward 
Hall  and  Mr.  Grant  White  (November,  1873). 
When  one  comes  to  inquire  what  it  was  all  about, 
and  why  Mr.  White  was  led  to  consider  Dr.  Hall 
a  "  yahoo  of  literature,"  and  "  a  man  born  without  a 
sense  of  decency,"  one  finds  himself  engaged  in  an 
investigation  of  great  difficulty,  but  of  consider- 
able interest.  The  controversy  between  these  two 
gentlemen  by  no  means  brings  up  the  problem  for 
the  first  time.  That  verbal  criticism,  such  as  Mr. 
White  has  been  producing  for  some  time  back,  is 
sure  to  end,  sooner  or  later,  in  one  or  more  sav- 
age quarrels,  is  one  of  the  most  familiar  facts  of 
the  literary  life  of  our  day.  Indeed,  so  far  as  our 
observation  has  gone,  the  rule  has  no  exceptions. 
Whenever  we  see  a  gentleman,  no  matter  how 
great  his  accomplishments  or  sweet  his  temper, 
announcing  that  he  is  about  to  write  articles  or  de- 
liver lectures  on  "  Words  and  their  Uses,"  or  on 
the  "  English  of  Every-day  Life,"  or  on  "  Familiar 


THE  ODIUM  PHILOLOGICUM  97 

Faults  of  Conversation,"  or  "  Newspaper  English," 
or  any  cognate  theme,  we  feel  all  but  certain  that 
we  shall  soon  see  him  engaged  in  an  encounter 
with  another  laborer  in  the  same  field,  in  which 
all  dignity  will  be  laid  aside,  and  in  which,  fig- 
uratively speaking,  clothes,  hair,  and  features  will 
suffer  terribly,  and  out  of  which,  unless  he  is  very 
lucky,  he  will  issue  with  the  gravest  imputations 
resting  on  his  character  in  every  relation  of  life. 

Now  why  is  it  that  attempts  to  get  one's  fellow- 
men  to  talk  correctly,  to  frame  their  sentences  in 
accordance  with  good  usage,  and  take  their  words 
from  the  best  authors,  have  this  tendency  to  arouse 
some  of  the  worst  passions  of  our  nature,  and  pre- 
dispose even  eminent  philologists — men  of  dainty 
language,  and  soft  manners,  and  lofty  aims — to  as- 
sail each  other  in  the  rough  vernacular  of  the  fish- 
market  and  the  forecastle  ?  A  careless  observer 
will  be  apt  to  say  that  it  is  an  ordinary  result  of 
disputation ;  that  when  men  differ  or  argue  on  any 
subject  they  are  apt  to  get  angry  and  indulge  in 
"  personalities."  But  this  is  not  true.  Lawyers, 
for  instance,  live  by  controversy,  and  their  contro- 
versies touch  interests  of  the  gravest  and  most  del- 
icate character — such  as  fortune  and  reputation  ; 
and  yet  the  spectacle  of  two  lawyers  abusing  each 
other  in  cold  blood,  in  print,  is  almost  unknown. 
Currency  and  banking  are,  at  certain  seasons,  sub- 


93  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

jects  of  absorbing  interest,  and,  for  the  last  seventy 
years,  the  discussions  over  them  have  been  numer- 
ous and  voluminous  almost  beyond  example,  and 
yet  we  remember  no  case  in  which  a  bullionist 
called  a  paper-money  man  bad  names,  or  in  which 
a  friend  of  free  banking  accused  a  restrictionist  of 
defrauding  the  poor  or  defacing  tombstones.  Pol- 
itics, too,  home  and  foreign,  is  a  fertile  source  of 
difference  of  opinion;  and  J7et  gross  abuse,  on 
paper,  of  each  other,  by  political  disputants,  dis- 
cussing abstract  questions  having  no  present  rela- 
tion to  power  or  pay,  are  very  rare  indeed. 

It  seems,  at  first  blush,  as  if  an  examination  of 
the  well-known  odium  theologicum,  or  the  tradi- 
tional bitterness  which  has  been  apt  to  charac- 
terize controversies  about  points  of  doctrine,  from 
the  Middle  Ages  down  to  a  period  within  our  own 
memory,  would  throw  some  light  on  the  matter. 
But  a  little  consideration  will  show  that  there  are 
special  causes  for  the  rancor  of  theologians  for 
which  word-criticism  has  no  parallel.  The  odium 
theologicum  was  the  natural  and  inevitable  result  of 
the  general  belief  that  the  holding  of  certain  opin- 
ions was  necessary  to  salvation,  and  that  the  forma- 
tion of  opinions  could  be  wholly  regulated  by  the 
will.  This  belief,  pushed  to  its  extreme  limits  and 
embodied  in  legislation,  led  to  the  burning  of  here- 
tics in  nearly  all  Christian  countries.  When  B's 


THE  ODIUX  PHILOLOGICUJf  99 

failure  to  adopt  A's  conclusions  was  by  A  regarded 
as  a  sign  of  depravity  of  nature  which  would  lead 
to  B's  damnation,  nothing  was  more  natural  than 
that  when  they  came  into  collision  in  pamphlets 
or  sermons  they  should  have  attributed  to  each 
other  the  worst  motives.  A  man  who  was  delib- 
erately getting  himself  ready  for  perdition  was  not 
a  person  to  whom  anybody  owed  courtesy  or  con- 
sideration, or  whose  arguments,  being  probably 
supplied  by  Satan,  deserved  respectful  examina- 
tion. We  accordingly  find  that  as  the  list  of  "  es- 
sential" opinions  has  become  shortened,  and  as 
doubts  as  to  men's  responsibility  for  their  opin- 
ions have  made  their  way  from  the  world  into  the 
church,  theological  controversy  has  lost  its  acri- 
mony and  indeed  has  almost  ceased.  No  theolo- 
gian of  high  standing  or  character  now  permits 
himself  to  show  bad  temper  in  a  doctrinal  or  her- 
meneutical  discussion,  and  a  large  and  increasing 
proportion  of  theologians  acknowledge  that  the 
road  to  heaven  is  so  hard  for  us  all  that  the  less 
quarrelling  and  jostling  there  is  in  it,  the  better 
for  everybody. 

Nor  does  the  odium  scientificum,  of  which  we 
have  now  happily  but  occasional  manifestations, 
furnish  us  with  any  suggestions.  Controversy  be- 
tween scientific  men  begins  to  be  bitter  and  fre- 
quent, as  the  field  of  investigation  grows  wider 


100  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

and  the  investigation  itself  grows  deeper.  But 
then  this  is  easily  accounted  for.  All  scientific 
men  of  the  first  rank  are  engaged  in  original  re- 
search— that  is,  in  attempts  to  discover  laws  and 
phenomena  previously  unknown.  The  workers  in 
all  departments  are  very  numerous,  and  are  scat- 
tered over  various  countries,  and  as  one  discovery, 
however  slight,  is  very  apt  to  help  in  some  de- 
gree in  the  making  of  another,  scientific  men  are 
constantly  exposed  to  having  their  claims  to  orig- 
inality contested,  either  as  regards  priority  in  point 
of  time  or  as  regards  completeness.  Consequently, 
they  may  be  said  to  stand  in  delicate  relations  to 
each  other,  and  are  more  than  usually  sensitive 
about  the  recognition  of  their  achievements  by 
their  brethren — a  state  of  things  which,  while  it 
cultivates  a  very  nice  sense  of  honor,  leads  occa- 
sionally to  encounters  in  which  free-will  seems  for 
the  moment  to  get  the  better  of  law.  The  differ- 
ences of  the  scientific  world,  too,  are  complicated 
by  the  theological  bearing  of  a  good  deal  of  scien- 
tific discovery  and  discussion,  and  many  a  scientific 
man  finds  himself  either  compelled  to  defend  him- 
self against  theologians,  or  to  aid  theologians  in 
bringing  an  erring  brother  to  reason. 

The  true  source  of  the  odium  philologicum  is, 
we  think,  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  a  man's 
speech  is  apt  to  be,  or  to  be  considered,  an  indi- 


THE  ODIUM  PHILOLOGICUM  101 

cation  of  the  manner  in  which  he  has  been  bred, 
and  of  the  character  of  the  company  he  keeps. 
Criticism  of  his  mode  of  using  words,  or  his  pro- 
nunciation, or  the  manner  in  which  he  compounds 
his  sentences,  almost  inevitably  takes  the  character 
of  an  attack  on  his  birth,  parentage,  education,  and 
social  position  ;  or,  in  other  words,  on  everything 
which  he  feels  most  sensitive  about  or  holds  most 
dear.  If  you  say  that  his  pronunciation  is  bad,  or 
that  his  language  is  slangy  or  ill-chosen,  you  insin- 
uate that  when  he  lived  at  home  with  his  papa  and 
mamma  he  was  surrounded  by  bad  models,  or,  in 
plain  English,  that  his  parents  were  vulgar  or  ignor- 
ant people  ;  when  you  say  that  he  writes  bad  gram- 
mar, or  is  guilty  of  glaring  solecisms,  or  displays 
want  of  etymological  knowledge,  you  insinuate  that 
his  education  was  neglected,  or  that  he  has  not 
associated  with  correct  speakers.  Usually,  too,  you 
do  all  this  in  the  most  provoking  way  by  selecting 
passages  from  his  writings  on  which  he  probably 
prided  himself,  and  separating  them  totally  from 
the  thought  of  which  he  was  full  when  he  produced 
them,  and  then  examining  them  mechanically,  as  if 
they  were  algebraic  signs,  which  he  used  without 
knowing  what  they  meant  or  where  they  would 
bring  him  out.  Nobody  stands  this  process  very 
long  with  equanimity,  because  nobody  can  be  sub- 
jected to  it  without  being  presented  to  the  public 


103  REFLECTIONS  AND   COJfJf&WTS 

somewhat  in  the  light  of  an  ignorant,  careless,  and 
pretentious  donkey.  Nor  will  it  do  to  cite  your 
examples  from  deceased  authors.  You  cannot  do 
so  without  assailing  some  form  of  expression  which 
an  eager,  listening  enemy  is  himself  in  the  habit 
of  using,  and  is  waiting  for  you  to  take  up,  and 
through  which  he  hopes  to  bring  you  to  shame. 
No  man,  moreover,  can  perform  the  process 
without  taking  on  airs  which  rouse  his  victim  to 
madness,  because  he  assumes  a  position  not  only 
of  grammatical,  but,  as  we  have  said,  of  social  supe- 
riority. He  says  plainly  enough,  no  matter  how 
polite  or  scientific  he  may  try  to  seem,  "  I  was  bet- 
ter born  and  bred  than  you,  and  acquired  these 
correct  turns  of  expression,  of  which  you  know 
nothing,  from  cultivated  relatives ;  "  or,  "  I  live  in 
cultivated  circles,  and  am  consequently  familiar 
with  the  best  usage,  which  you,  poor  fellow!  are 
not.  I  am  therefore  able  to  decide  this  matter 
without  argument  or  citations,  and  your  best 
course  is  to  take  my  corrections  in  silence  or  with 
thankfulness."  It  is  easy  to  understand  how  all 
interest  in  orthography,  etymology,  syntax,  and 
prosody  speedily  disappears  in  a  controversy  of 
this  sort,  and  how  the  disputants  begin  to  burn 
with  mutual  dislike,  and  how  each  longs  to  inflict 
pain  and  anguish  on  his  opponent,  and  make  him, 
no  matter  by  what  means,  an  object  of  popular 


THE  ODIUM1  PHILOLOG1CUM  103 

pity  and  contempt,  and  make  his  parts  of  speech 
odious  and  ridiculous.  The  influence  of  all  good 
men  ought  to  be  directed  either  to  repressing  ver- 
bal criticism,  or  restricting  indulgence  in  it  to  the 
family  circle  or  to  schools  and  colleges. 


PROFESSOR  HUXLEY'S  LECTUKES 

BIOLOGISTS  like  Professor  Huxley  have,  as  popu- 
lar lecturers,  the  advantage  over  scientific  men  in 
other  fields,  of  occupying  themselves  with  what  is 
to  ninety-nine  men  and  women  out  of  a  hundred 
the  most  momentous  of  all  problems — the  manner 
in  which  life  on  this  globe  began,  and  in  which 
men  and  other  animals  came  to  be  what  they  are. 
The  doctrine  of  evolution  as  a  solution  of  these 
problems,  or  of  one  of  them,  derives  additional  in- 
terest from  the  fact  that  in  many  minds  it  runs 
counter  to  ideas  which  a  very  large  proportion  of 
the  population  above  the  age  of  thirty  imbibed 
with  the  earliest  and  most  impressive  portion  of 
their  education.  Down  to  1850  the  bulk  of  intel- 
ligent men  and  women  believed  that  the  world,  and 
all  that  is  therein,  originated  in  the  precise  manner 
described  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  and  about 
six  thousand  years  ago.  Most  of  the  adaptations, 
or  attempts  at  adaptation,  of  what  is  called  the 
Mosaic  account  of  the  creation,  of  the  chronologi- 
cal theories  of  the  geologists  and  evolutionists  by 


1C5 

theologians  and  Biblical  scholars  have  been  made 
within  that  period,  and  it  may  be  safely  said  that 
it  is  only  within  ten  or  fifteen  years  that  any  clear 
knowledge  of  the  "  conflict  between  science-  and 
religion "  has  reached  that  portion  of  the  people 
who  take  a  lively  or,  indeed,  any  interest,  in  re- 
ligious matters.  It  would  not,  in  fact,  be  rash  to 
say  that  little  or  nothing  is  known  about  this  con- 
flict to  this  hour  among  the  great  body  of  Metho- 
dists or  Catholics,  or  the  evangelical  portion  of 
other  denominations,  and  that  their  religious  out- 
look is  little,  if  at  all,  affected  by  it.  One  would 
never  detect,  for  instance,  in  Mr.  Moody's  preach- 
ing, any  indication  that  he  had  ever  heard  of  any 
such  conflict,  or  that  the  doctrines  of  the  orthodox 
Protestant  Church  had  undergone  any  sensible 
modification  within  a  hundred  years.  Professor 
Huxley  and  men  like  him,  therefore,  make  their 
appearance  now  not  simply  as  manipulators  of  a 
most  interesting  subject,  but  as  disturbers  of  be- 
liefs which  are  widely  spread,  deeply  rooted,  and 
surrounded  by  the  tenderest  and  most  sacred  as- 
sociations of  human  existence. 

That  under  such  circumstances  he  has  met  with 
so  little  opposition  is,  on  the  whole,  rather  sur- 
prising. As  far  as  our  observation  has  gone,  no 
strong  hostility  whatever  to  himself  or  his  teach- 
ings has  been  shown,  except  in  one  or  two  in- 


106 

stances,  by  either  the  clergy  or  the  religious  press. 
Indeed,  ministers  formed  a  very  prominent  and 
attentive  portion  of  his  audience  at  the  recent 
lectures  at  Chickering  Hall.  But  it  has  been 
made  very  apparent  by  the  articles  and  letters 
which  these  lectures  have  called  out  in  the  news- 
papers that  the  religious  public  has  hardly  un- 
derstood him.  The  collision  between  the  theolo- 
gians and  the  scientific  men  has  been  very  slight 
among  us;  and,  indeed,  the  waves  of  the  con- 
troversy hardly  reached  this  country  until  the 
storm  had  passed  away  in  Europe,  so  that  it  is 
difficult  for  Americans  to  appreciate  the  com- 
bative tone  of  Mr.  Huxley's  oratory.  Of  this 
difficulty  the  effect  of  his  substitution  of  Milton 
for  Moses  as  the  historian  of  the  creation,  on  the 
night  of  his  first  lecture,  has  furnished  an  amusing 
illustration.  The  audienco,  or  at  least  that  portion 
of  it  which  was  gifted  with  any  sense  of  humor, 
saw  the  joke  and  laughed  over  it  heartily.  It  was 
simply  a  telling  rhetorical  device,  intended  to  point 
a  sarcasm  directed  against  the  biblical  commenta- 
tors who  have  been  trying  to  extract  the  doctrines 
of  evolution  from  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis. 
But  many  of  the  newspapers  all  over  the  country 
took  it  up  seriously,  and  the  professor  must,  if  he 
saw  them,  have  enjoyed  mightily  the  various  let- 
ters and  articles  which  have  endeavored  in  solemn 


PROFESSOR  HUXLEY'S  LECTURES  107 

earnest  to  show  that  Milton  was  not  justly  entitled 
to  the  rank  of  a  scientific  expositor,  and  that  it 
was  a  cowardly  thing  in  the  lecturer  to  attack 
Moses  over  Milton's  shoulders.  Whenever  Pro- 
fessor Huxley  enters  on  the  defence  of  his  science, 
as  distinguished  from  the  exposition  of  it,  there 
are  traces  in  his  language  of  the  gaudium  certaminis 
which  has  found  expression  in  so  many  hard-fought 
fields  in  his  own  country,  and  which  has  made  him 
perhaps  the  most  formidable  antagonist,  in  so  far 
as  dialectics  go,  that  the  transcendental  philos- 
ophers have  ever  encountered.  He  is,  par  excel- 
lence, a  fighting  man,  but  certainly  his  pugnacity 
diminishes  neither  his  worth  nor  his  capacity.  . 

In  many  of  the  comments  which  his  lectures 
have  called  out  in  the  newspapers  one  meets  every 
now  and  then  with  a  curious  failure  to  comprehend 
the  position  which  an  average  non-scientific  man 
occupies  in  such  a  conflict  as  in  now  going  on  over 
the  doctrines  of  evolution.  Professor  Huxley  was 
very  careful  not  to  repeat  the  error  which  de- 
livered Professor  Tyndall  into  the  hands  of  the 
enemy  at  Belfast.  He  expressed  no  opinion  as  to 
the  nature  of  the  causal  force  which  called  the 
world  into  existence.  He  did  not  profess  to  know 
anything  about  the  sources  of  life.  He  conse- 
quently did  not  once  place  himself  on  the  level 
of  the  theologian  or  the  unscientific  spectator. 


108  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

What  he  undertook  to  do  and  did  was  to  present 
to  the  audience  some  specimens  of  the  evidence 
by  which  evolutionists  have  been  led  to  the  con- 
clusion that  their  theory  is  correct.  Now,  the  mis- 
take which  a  good  many  newspaper  writers — some 
of  them  ministers — have  made  in  passing  judg- 
ment on  the  lectures  lies  in  their  supposing  that 
this  evidence  must  be  weak  and  incomplete  because 
they  have  not  been  convinced.  There  is  probably 
no  more  widely  diffused  fallacy,  or  one  which 
works  more  mischief  in  all  walks  of  life,  than  the 
notion  that  it  is  only  those  whose  business  it  is  to 
persuade  who  need  to  be  trained  in  the  art  of  proof, 
and  that  those  who  are  to  be  persuaded  need  no 
process  of  preparation  at  all. 

The  fact  is  that  skill  in  reasoning  is  as  necessary 
on  the  one  side  as  the  other.  He  cannot  be  fully 
and  rightly  convinced  who  does  not  himself  know 
how  to  convince,  and  no  man  is  competent  to 
judge  in  the  last  resort  of  the  force  of  an  argu- 
ment who  is  not  on  something  like  an  equality  of 
knowledge  and  dialectical  skill  with  the  person 
using  it.  This  is  true  in  all  fields  of  discussion  ; 
it  is  pre-eminently  true  in  scientific  fields.  Of 
course,  therefore,  the  real  public  of  the  scientific 
man — the  public  which  settles  finally  whether  he 
has  made  out  his  case — is  a  small  one.  Outside 
of  it  there  is  another  and  larger  one  on  which  his 


PROFESSOR  HUXLEY'S  LECTURES  109 

reasoning  may  act  with  irresistible  force  ;  but  just 
as  the  fact  that  it  does  so  act  does  not  prove  that 
his  hypothesis  is  true,  so  also  the  fact  that  it  has 
failed  to  convince  proves  nothing  against  its  sound- 
ness. In  other  words,  a  man's  occupying  the  posi- 
tion of  a  listener  does  not  necessarily  clothe  him 
with  the  attributes  of  a  judge,  and  there  may  be 
as  much  folly  and  impertinence  in  his  going  about 
saying,  "  I  do  not  agree  with  Huxley ;  he  has  not 
satisfied  me  ;  he  will  have  to  produce  more  proof 
than  that  before  I  believe  in  evolution,"  as  in  going 
about  saying,  "  I  know  as  much  about  evolution  as 
Huxley  and  could  give  as  good  a  lecture  on  it  as 
he  any  day."  And  yet  a  good  many  people  are 
guilty  of  the  one  who  would  blush  at  the  mere 
thought  of  the  other. 

Another  fertile  source  of  confusion  in  this  and 
similar  controversies  is  the  habit  which  transcen- 
dentalists,  theological  and  other,  have  of  using  the 
term  "  truth  "  in  two  different  senses,  the  scientific 
sense  and  the  religious  or  spiritual  sense.  The 
scientific  man  only  uses  it  in  one.  Truth  to  him 
is  something  capable  of  demonstration  by  some 
one  of  the  canons  of  induction.  He  knows  noth- 
ing of  any  truth  which  cannot  be  proved.  The 
religious  man,  on  the  other  hand,  and  especially 
the  minister,  has  been  bred  in  the  application  of 
the  term  to  facts  of  an  entirely  different  order — 


110  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

that  is,  to  emotions  produced  by  certain  beliefs 
which  he  cannot  justify  by  any  arguments,  and 
about  which  to  him  no  argument  is  necessary. 
These  are  the  "  spiritual  truths  "  which  are  said  to 
be  perceptible  often  to  the  simple-minded  and  un- 
learned, though  hidden  from  the  wise  and  prudent. 
Now  there  is  no  decently  educated  religious  man 
who  does  not  perceive  the  distinction  between 
these  two  kinds  of  truths,  and  few  who  do  not 
think  they  keep  this  distinction  in  mind  when 
passing  upon  the  great  problems  of  the  origin  and 
growth  of  the  universe.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
we  see  the  distinction  ignored  every  day.  People 
go  to  scientific  lectures  and  read  scientific  books 
with  their  heads  filled  with  spiritual  truths,  which 
have  come  they  know  not  whence,  and  which  give 
them  infinite  comfort  in  all  the  trying  passages  of 
life,  and  in  view  of  this  comfort  must,  they  think, 
connect  them  by  invisible  lines  of  communication 
with  the  great  Secret  of  the  Universe,  toward  which 
philosophers  try  to  make  their  way  by  visible 
lines.  When,  then,  they  find  that  the  scientific 
man's  induction  makes  no  impression  on  this 
other  truth,  and  that  he  cannot  dislodge  any  the- 
ory of  the  growth  or  government  of  the  world 
which  has  become  firmly  imbedded  in  it,  they  are 
apt  to  conclude  that  there  is  something  faulty  in 
his  methods,  or  rash  and  presumptuous  in  his 


PROFESSOR  HUXLEY'S  LECTURES  111 

conclusions.  But  there  is  only  one  course  for 
the  leaders  of  religious  thought  to  follow  in  order 
to  prevent  the  disastrous  confusion  which  comes 
of  the  sudden  and  complete  break-down  of  the 
moral  standards  and  sanctions  by  which  the 
mass  of  mankind  live,  and  that  is  to  put  an  end 
at  once,  and  gracefully,  to  the  theory  that  the 
spiritual  truth  which  brings  the  peace  which 
passeth  understanding  has  any  necessary  connec- 
tion with  any  theory  of  the  physical  universe,  or 
can  be  used  to  refute  it  or  used  as  a  substitute  for 
it,  or  is  dependent  on  the  authenticity  or  interpre- 
tation of  any  book.  They  must  not  flatter  them- 

•/  •/ 

selves  because  a  scientific  man  here  and  there 
doubts  or  gainsays,  or  because  some  learned  theo- 
logian is  still  unconvinced,  or  because  the  mental 
habits  of  which  faith  is  born  seem  to  hold  their 
ground  or  show  signs  of  revival,  that  the  philosophy 
of  which  Huxley  is  a  master  is  not  slowly  but  surely 
gaining  ground.  The  proofs  may  not  yet  be  com- 
plete, but  they  grow  day  by  day  ;  some  of  the  elder 
scientific  men  may  scout,  but  no  young  ones  are  ap- 
pearing to  take  their  places  and  preach  their  creed. 
The  tide  seems  sometimes  to  ebb  from  month  to 
month,  but  it  rises  from  year  to  year.  The  true 
course  of  spiritually  minded  men  under  these  cir- 
cumstances is  to  separate  their  faith  from  all  theories 
of  the  precise  manner  in  which  the  world  originated, 


112  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

or  of  the  length  of  time  it  has  lasted,  as  matters,  for 
their  purposes,  of  little  or  no  moment.  The  secret 
springs  of  hope  and  courage  from  which  each  of 
us  draws  strength  in  the  great  crises  of  existence 
would  flow  all  the  same  whether  life  appeared  on 
the  planet  ten  million  or  ten  thousand  years  ago, 
and  whether  the  present  forms  of  life  were  the  prod- 
uct of  one  day  or  of  many  ages.  And  we  doubt 
very  much  whether  anyone  has  ever  listened  in  a 
candid  and  dispassionate  frame  of  mind  to  the  evo- 
lutionist's history  of  the  globe  without  finding  that 
it  had  deepened  for  him  the  mystery  of  the  universe, 
and  magnified  the  Power  which  stands  behind  it. 

Not  the  least  interesting  feature  in  the  discus- 
sion about  the  theory  of  evolution  is  the  promi- 
nent part  taken  in  it  by  clergymen  of  various 
denominations.  There  is  hardly  one  of  them  who, 
since  Huxley's  lectures,  has  not  preached  a  sermon 
bearing  on  the  matter  in  some  way,  and  several 
have  made  it  the  topic  of  special  articles  or  lect- 
ures. In  fact,  we  do  not  think  we  exaggerate  when 
we  say  that  three-fourths  of  all  that  has  been  re- 
cently said  or  written  about  the  hypothesis  in  this 
country  has  been  said  or  written  by  ministers. 
There  is  no  denying  that  the  theory,  if  true, 
does,  in  appearance  at  least,  militate  against  the 
account  of  the  creation  given  in  the  first  chapter 
of  Genesis,  or,  in  other  words,  against  the  view  of 


PROFESSOR   HUXLEY'S  LECTURES  113 

the  origin  of  life  on  the  globe  which  has  been  held 
by  the  Christian  world  for  seventeen  centuries.  It 
would,  therefore,  be  by  no  means  surprising  that 
ministers  should  meet  it,  either  by  showing  that 
the  Mosaic  account  of  the  creation  was  really  in- 
spired— was,  in  short,  the  account  given  by  the 
Creator  himself — or  that  the  modern  interpreta- 
tions of  it  were  incorrect,  and  that  it  was  really, 
when  perfectly  understood,  easily  reconciled  with 
the  conclusions  reached  of  late  years  by  geologists 
and  biologists.  This  is  the  way  in  which  a  great 
many  ministers  have  hitherto  met  the  evolution- 
ists, and  for  this  sort  of  work  they  are  undoubtedly 
fitted  by  education  and  experience.  If  it  can  be 
done  by  anyone,  they  are  the  men  to  do  it.  If  it 
be  maintained  that  the  biblical  account  is  literally 
true,  they  are  more  familiar  than  any  other  class 
of  men  with  the  evidence  and  arguments  accumu- 
lated by  the  Church  in  favor  of  the  inspiration  of 
the  Scriptures  ;  or  if,  on  the  other  hand,  it  be  de- 
sired to  reconcile  the  Bible  with  evolution,  they 
are  more  familiar  than  any  other  class  of  men  with 
the  exegetical  process  by  which  this  reconciliation 
can  be  effected.  They  are  specially  trained  in 
ecclesiastical  history  and  tradition,  in  Greek  and 
Hebrew  religious  literature,  and  in  the  methods 
of  interpretation  which  have  been  for  ages  in  use 
among  theologians. 


114  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

Of  late,  however,  they  have  shown  a  decided  in- 
clination to  abandon  the  purely  ecclesiastical  ap- 
proach to  the  controversy  altogether,  and  this  is 
especially  remarkable  in  the  discussion  now  pend- 
ing over  Huxley.  They  do  not  seek  to  defend  the 
biblical  account  of  the  creation,  or  to  reconcile  it 
with  the  theory  of  the  evolutionists.  Far  from  it, 
they  have  come  down,  in  most  of  the  recent  cases, 
into  the  scientific  arena,  and  are  meeting  the  men 
of  science  with  their  own  weapons.  They  tell 
Huxley  and  Darwin  and  Tyndall  that  their  evi- 
dence is  imperfect,  and  their  reasoning  from  it 
faulty.  Noticing  their  activity  in  this  new  field, 
and  the  marked  contrast  which  this  activity  pre- 
sents to  the  modesty  or  indifference  of  the  other 
professions — the  lawyers  and  doctors,  for  instance, 
who  on  general  grounds  have  fully  as  much  reason 
to  be  interested  in  evolution  as  the  ministers,  and 
have  hitherto  been  at  least  as  well  fitted  to  discuss 
it — we  asked  ourselves  whether  it  was  possible 
that,  without  our  knowledge,  any  change  had  of 
late  years  been  made  in  the  curriculum  of  the  di- 
vinity schools  or  theological  seminaries  with  the 
view  of  fitting  ministers  to  take  a  prominent  part 
in  the  solution  of  the  increasingly  important  and 
startling  problems  raised  by  physical  science.  In 
order  to  satisfy  ourselves,  we  lately  turned  over 
the  catalogues  of  all  the  principal  divinity  schools 


PROFESSOR  HUXLEY'S  LECTURES  115 

in  the  country,  to  see  if  any  chairs  of  natural 
science  had  been  established,  or  if  candidates  for 
the  ministry  had  to  undergo  any  compulsory  in- 
struction in  geology  or  physics,  or  the  higher 
mathematics,  or  biology,  or  palaeontology,  or  as- 
tronomy, or  had  to  become  versed  in  the  methods 
of  scientific  investigation  in  the  laboratory  or  in 
the  dissecting-room,  or  were  subjected  to  any  un- 
usually severe  discipline  in  the  use  of  the  induc- 
tive process.  Not  much  to  our  surprise,  we  found 
nothing  of  the  kind.  We  found  that,  to  all  appear- 
ance, not  even  the  smallest  smattering  of  natural 
science  in  any  of  its  branches  is  considered  neces- 
sary  to  a  minister's  education ;  no  astronomy,  no 
chemistry,  no  biology,  no  geology,  no  higher  math- 
ematics, no  comparative  anatomy,  and  nothing 
severe  in  logic.  In  fact,  of  special  preparation  for 
the  discussion  of  such  a  theme  as  the  origin  of 
life  on  the  earth,  there  does  not  appear  to  be  in 
the  ordinary  course  of  our  divinity  schools  any 
trace. 

We  then  said  to  ourselves,  But  ministers  are 
modest,  truthful  men;  they  would  not  knowingly 
pass  themselves  off  as  competent  on  a  subject 
with  which  they  were  unfitted  to  deal.  They  are 
no  less  candid  and  self-distrustful,  for  instance, 
than  lawyers  and  doctors,  and  a  lawyer  or  doctor 
who  ventured  to  tackle  a  professed  scientist  on  a 


116  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

scientific  subject  to  which  he  had  given  no  system- 
atic study  would  be  laughed  at  by  his  professional 
brethren,  and  would  suffer  from  it  even  in  his  pro- 
fessional reputation,  as  it  would  be  taken  to  indi- 
cate a  dangerous  want  of  self-knowledge.  Perhaps, 
then,  the  training  given  in  the  divinity  schools, 
though  it  does  not  touch  special  fields  of  science, 
is  such  as  to  prepare  the  mind  for  the  work  of  in- 
duction by  some  course  of  intellectual  gymnastics. 
Perhaps,  though  it  does  not  familiarize  a  man  with 
the  facts  of  geology  and  biology  and  astronomy, 
it  so  disciplines  Him  in  the  work  of  collecting  and 
arranging  facts  of  any  kind,  and  reasoning  from 
them,  that  he  will  be  a  master  in  the  art  of  proof, 
and  that,  in  short,  though  he  may  not  have  a 
scientific  man's  knowledge,  he  will  have  his  mental 
habits. 

But  we  found  this  second  supposition  as  far 
from  the  truth  as  the  first  one  was.  Moreover,  the 
mental  constitution  of  the  young  men  who  choose 
the  ministry  as  a  profession  is  not  apt  to  be  of  a 
kind  well  fitted  for  scientific  investigation.  Rev- 
erence is  one  of  their  prominent  characteristics, 
and  reverence  predisposes  them  to  accept  things 
on  authority.  They  are  inclined  to  seek  truth 
rather  as  a  means  of  repose  than  for  its  own  sake, 
and  to  fancy  that  it  is  associated  closely  with  spir- 
itual comfort,  and  that  they  have  secured  the  truth 


PROFESSOR  HUXLEY'S  LECTURES  117 

when  they  feel  the  comfort.  Though,  last  not  least, 
they  enter  the  seminary  with  a  strong  bias  in  favor 
of  one  particular  theory  of  the  origin  of  life  and  of 
the  history  of  the  race,  and  their  subsequent  stud- 
ies are  marked  out  and  pursued  with  the  set  pur- 
pose of  strengthening  this  bias  and  of  qualifying 
them  to  defend  it  and  spread  it,  and  of  associating 
in  their  minds  the  doubt  or  rejection  of  it  with 
moral  evil.  The  consequence  is  that  they  go  forth, 
trained  not  as  investigators  or  inquirers,  but  as 
advocates,  charged  with  the  defence_against  all 
comers  of  a  view^of  the  universe  which  they  have 
accepted  ready  -  made  from  teachers.  A  worse 
preparation  for  scientific  pursuits  of  any  kind  can 
hardly  be  imagined.  The  slightest  trace  of  such  a 
state  of  mind  in  a  scientific  man — that  is,  of  a  dis- 
position to  believe  a  thing  on  grounds  of  feeling 
or  interest,  or  with  reference  to  practical  conse- 
quences, or  to  jump  over  gaps  in  proof  in  order  to 
reach  pleasant  conclusions  —  discredits  him  with 
his  fellows,  and  throws  doubt  on  his  statements. 

We  are  not  condemning  this  state  of  mind  for  all 
purposes.  Indeed,  we  think  the  wide-spread  preva- 
lence of  the  philosophic  way  of  looking  at  things 
would  be  in  many  respects  a  great  misfortune  for 
the  race,  and  we  acknowledge  that  a  rigidly  trained 
philosopher  would  be  unfit  for  most  of  a  minis- 
ter's functions;  but  we  have  only  to  describe  a 


118  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

minister's  education  in  order  to  show  his  exceed- 
ing unreadiness  for  contentions  such  as  some  of  his 
brethren  are  carrying  on  with  geologists  and  phys- 
icists and  biologists.  In  fact,  there  is  no  educated 
calling  whose  members  are  not,  on  the  whole,  bet- 
ter equipped  for  fighting  in  scientific  fields  over 
the  hypothesis  of  evolution.  Our  surprise  at  see- 
ing lawyers  and  doctors  engaged  in  it  would  be 
very  much  less  justifiable,  for  a  portion  at  least  of 
the  training  received  in  these  professions  is  of  a 
scientific  cast,  and  concerns  the  selection  and 
classification  of  facts,  while  a  clergyman's  is  almost 
wholly  devoted  to  the  study  of  the  opinions  and 
sayings  of  other  men.  Jji  truth,  theology,  properly 
so  called,  is  a  collection  of  opinions.  Nor  do  these 
objections  to  a  clergyman  s  mingling  in  scientific 
disputes  arise  out  of  his  belief  about  the  origin 
and  government  of  the  world  per  se,  because  one 
does  not  think  of  making  them  to  trained  religious 
philosophers  ;  for  instance,  to  Principal  Dawson 
or  Mr.  St.  George  Mivart.  Some  may  think  or  say 
that  the  religious  prepossessions  of  these  gentle- 
men lessen  the  weight  of  their  opinions  on  a  cer- 
tain class  of  scientific  questions,  but  no  one  would 
question  their  right  to  share  in  scientific  discus- 
sions. 


SOME  of  the  letters  from  clergymen  which  have 
been  called  out  by  our  article  on  the  part  recently 
taken  by  them  in  scientific  discussion  maintain 
that,  although  ministers  may  not  be  familiar  with 
the  facts  of  science,  many  of  them  are  fully  compe- 
tent to  weigh  the  arguments  founded  on  these 
facts  put  forward  by  scientific  men,  and  decide 
whether  they  have  proved  their  case  or  not ;  or,  in 
other  words,  that  we  were  mistaken  in  saying  that 
the  theological  seminaries  did  not  afford  severe 
training  in  the  use  of  the  inductive  process,  and 
that  it  could  not  be  used  effectively  without  knowl- 
edge of  the  matters  on  which  it  was  used.  More 
than  one  of  these  letters  points,  in  support  of 
this  view,  to  the  answer  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Taylor,  of 
this  city,  to  Professor  Huxley's  lectures,  published 
some  weeks  ago  in  the  Tribune,  and  we  believe  the 
Tribune  presented  the  author  to  the  public  as  "  a 
trained  logician." 

We  have  accordingly  turned  to  Dr.  Taylor's  let- 
ter and  given  it  a  mucn  more  attentive  reading 


130 

than  we  confess  we  gave  it  when  it  first  appeared, 
for  the  purpose  of  seeing  whether  it  was  really 
true  that  ministers  were  such  dexterous  and 
highly  taught  dialecticians  that  they  could  over- 
throw a  scientific  man,  even  on  a  subject  of  which 
they  knew  little  or  nothing — whether,  in  short, 
they  could  really  treat  the  question  of  evolution 
algebraically,  and,  by  the  mere  aid  of  signs  of  the 
meaning  of  which  they  were  ignorant,  put  the 
Huxleys  and  Darwins  to  confusion.  For  Dr. 
Taylor  opens  in  this  way : 

"  Let  it  be  understood,  then,  that  I  have  no  fault  to  find 
•with  Mr.  Huxley  as  a  discoverer  of  facts  or  as  an  exponent  of 
comparative  anatomy.  In  both  of  these  respects  he  is  beyond 
all  praise  of  mine,  and  I  am  ready  to  sit  at  his  feet ;  but  when 
he  begins  to  reason  from  the  facts  which  he  sets  forth,  then, 
like  every  other  reasoner,  he  is  amenable  to  the  laws  of  argu- 
mentation, and  his  conclusions  are  to  be  tested  by  the  relation 
which  they  bear  to  the  premises  which  he  has  advanced,  and 
by  the  proof  which  he  furnishes  for  the  premises  themselves." 

We  pass  over,  as  of  no  consequence  for  our 
present  purpose,  the  various  exceptions  which  he 
then  takes  to  Huxley's  arrangement  of  his  lectures, 
to  the  tone  of  his  exceptions,  and  to  his  mode  of 
referring  to  the  biblical  hypothesis,  and  come  to 
what  he  has  to  say  of  Huxley's  evidence,  which  he 
truly  calls  "circumstantial  evidence."  The  first 
thing  he  does  is  to  define  circumstantial  evidence ; 


UIRCUMSTANTIAL  EVIDENCE  121 

but  here,  at  the  very  outset,  we  have  been  sur- 
prised to  find  a  logician  who  conceives  himself 
capable  of  overhauling  the  argumentation  of  the 
masters  of  science,  going  to  a  lawyer  to  get  "  a 
statement  of  the  principles  which  regulate  the 
value  of  circumstantial  evidence."  This  is  a  mat- 
ter which  lay  logicians  usually  have  at  their  fin- 
gers' ends,  and  we  have  never  known  one  yet  who 
would  not  be  puzzled  by  a  suggestion  that  he 
should  do  as  Dr.  Taylor  did — go  to  a  "distin- 
guished legal  friend"  for  information  as  to  the 
conditions  of  this  kind  of  proof.  For,  as  we  have 
more  than  once  pointed  out,  lawyers,  as  such,  have 
no  special  skill  or  training  in  the  use  of  circum- 
stantial evidence  as  scientific  men  know  it — that 
is,  as  evidence  which  derives  all  its  force  from  the 
laws  of  the  human  mind.  The  circumstantial  evi- 
dence with  which  lawyers,  qua  lawyers,  are  familiar 
under  our  system  of  jurisprudence  is  an  artificial 
thing  created  by  legislation  or  custom,  with  the 
object  of  preventing  the  minds  of  the  jury — pre- 
sumably a  body  of  untrained  and  unlearned  men 
— from  being  confused  or  led  astray.  Moreover, 
they  are  only  familiar  with  its  use  in  one  very 
narrow  field — human  conduct  under  one  set  of 
social  conditions.  For  example,  a  lawyer  might 
be  a  very  good  judge  of  circumstantial  evidence 
in  America,  and  a  very  poor  one  in  India  or 


122  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

China;  might  have  a  keen  eye  for  the  probable 
or  improbable  in  a  New  England  village,  and  none 
at  all  in  a  Prussian  barrack. 

A  familiar  illustration  of  the  restrictions  on  his 
experience  of  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  rule  which 
compels  the  calling  of  "  experts  "  when  there  is  a 
question  as  to  any  point  of  science  or  art.  "  The 
words  science  or  art,"  says  Mr.  Fitzjames  Stephen, 
"  include  all  subjects  on  which  a  course  of  special 
study  or  experience  is  necessary  to  the  formation  of 
an  opinion"  and  the  opinion  of  such  an  expert  is  a 
"relevant  fact."  So  that  Dr.  Taylor's  "distin- 
guished legal  friend,"  if  a  good  lawyer,  would  not, 
in  spite  of  his  proficiency  in  circumstantial  evi- 
dence, undertake  to  dispute  with  Professor  Huxley 
about  the  relation  of  the  anchitherium,  hipparion, 
and  horse ;  and  if  Dr.  Taylor  offered  himself  for 
examination  on  such  a  point  he  would  be  laughed 
out  of  court.  In  none  of  our  courts  is  the  pres- 
entation allowed  of  all  the  circumstances  which 
strengthen  or  weaken  a  probability. 

A  lawyer,  therefore,  though  he  might  not  be  as 
ill  fitted  for  a  scientific  discussion  as  a  minister, 
is,  as  such,  hardly  more  of  an  authority  on  the 
force  and  limits  of  that  portion  of  scientific  proof 
which  is  drawn  from  simple  observation.  Dr. 
Taylor's  consulting  one  as  a  final  authority  as  to 
the  very  nature  of  the  argument  on  which  he  was 


CIRCUMSTANTIAL  EVIDENCE  133 

himself  about  to  sit  in  judgment  is  at  the  outset 
a  suspicious  incident.  The  definition  of  circum- 
stantial evidence  which  he  got  from  his  legal 
friend  was  this : 

"  The  process  of  proof  by  circumstantial  evidence  consists 
in  reasoning  from  such  facts  as  are  known  or  proved,  and 
thence  establishing  such  as  are  conjectured  to  exist.  The 
process  is  fatally  vicious,  first,  if  any  material  circumstance 
from  which  we  seek  to  deduce  the  conclusion  depends  itself 
on  conjecture  ;  and,  second,  if  the  known  facts  are  not  such 
as  to  exclude  to  a  reasonable  degree  of  certainty  every  other 
hypothesis." 

"  Now,  tried  by  these  two  tests,"  says  Dr.  Tay- 
lor, "the  professor's  argument  was  a  failure." 
Taking  this  definition  as  it  stands,  however,  we 
think  it  will  not  be  difficult  to  show  that  Dr. 
Taylor  is  not  competent  to  apply  the  tests,  or  to 
say  whether  the  professor's  argument  is  a  failure 
or  not. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  all  the  evi- 
dence in  our  possession  or  attainable,  with  regard 
to  the  history  of  the  earth  and  of  animal  and  veg- 
etable life  on  its  surface,  is  circumstantial  evi- 
dence. The  sciences  of  geology,  palaeontology, 
and,  to  a  certain  extent,  biology  are  sciences  of 
observation,  and  but  few  of  their  conclusions  can 
be  reached  or  tested  by  experimentation.  They 
are  the  result  of  a  collection  of  facts,  observed  in 


124  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

various  places,  at  various  times,  and  by  various 
persons,  and  variously  related  to  other  facts ;  and 
the  collection  of  these  facts,  and  the  arrangement 
of  them,  and  the  formation  of  a  judgment  as  to 
their  value  both  positive  and  relative,  form  the 
greater  portion  of  the  work  of  a  scientific  man  in 
these  fields.  Professor  Huxley's  argument,  which 
Dr.  Taylor  disposes  of  so  summarily,  consists  of  a 
series  of  inferences  from  facts  so  collected  and  ar- 
ranged. They  are  the  things  "  known  or  proved," 
on  which,  as  his  legal  friend  truly  says,  the  reason- 
ing in  the  process  of  proof  by  circumstantial  evi- 
dence must  rest. 

Now,  Dr.  Taylor,  by  his  own  confession,  is  no 
authority  in  either  geology,  biology,  or  palseontol- 
ogy.  He  has  neither  collected,  observed,  nor  ex- 
perimented in  these  fields.  He  does  not  know 
how  many  facts  have  been  discovered  in  them, 
or  what  bearing  they  have  on  other  facts  in  other 
fields.  Therefore,  he  is  entirely  unable  to  say 
whether  Huxley  is  arguing  from  things  "known 
or  proved"  or  not.  Moreover,  he  does  not,  for 
similar  reasons,  know  whether  Huxley's  process 
has  been  "  fatally  vitiated  "  by  the  dependence  of 
any  "  material  circumstance  "  on  conjecture,  or  by 
the  insufficiency  of  the  "  known  facts  "  to  exclude 
every  other  hypothesis ;  for,  first,  he  does  not 
know  what  is  in  geological,  biological,  or  palseon- 


CIRCUMSTANTIAL  EVIDENCE  125 

tological  induction  a  "material  circumstance" — 
nor  does  any  man  know  except  by  prolonged  study 
and  observation — and,  second,  he  does  not  know 
whether  "the  known  or  proved  facts"  are  suf- 
ficient to  exclude  every  other  hypothesis,  because 
he  neither  knows  what  facts  are  known  nor  what 
is  the  probative  force  of  such  as  are  known.  We 
can,  however,  make  Dr.  Taylor's  position  still 
clearer  by  a  homely  illustration.  A  wild  Indian 
will,  owing  to  prolonged  observation  and  great 
acuteness  of  the  senses,  tell  by  a  simple  inspec- 
tion of  grass  or  leaf-covered  ground,  on  which  a 
scholar  will  perceive  nothing  unusual  whatever, 
that  a  man  has  recently  passed  over  it.  He  will 
tell  whether  he  was  walking  or  running,  whether 
he  carried  a  burden,  whether  he  was  young  or 
old,  and  how  long  ago  and  what  hour  of  the  day 
he  went  by.  He  reaches  all  his  conclusions  by 
circumstantial  evidence  of  precisely  the  same  char- 
acter as  that  used  by  the  geologist,  though  he 
knows  nothing  about  the  formal  logic  or  the  proc- 
ess of  induction.  Now,  what  Dr.  Taylor  would 
have  us  believe  is  that  he  can  come  out  of  his 
study  and  pass  judgment  on  the  Indian's  reason- 
ing without  being  able  to  see  one  of  the  "  known 
facts  "  on  which  the  reasoning  rests,  or  appreciate 
in  any  degree  which  of  them  is  material  to  the 
conclusion  and  which  is  not,  or  even  to  conjecture 


136  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

whether,  taken  together,  they  exclude  the  hypoth- 
esis that  it  was  not  a  man  but  a  cow  or  a  dog 
which  passed  over  the  ground,  and  not  to-day  but 
yesterday  that  the  marks  were  made. 

Dr.  Taylor  further  on  makes  a  display  of  this  in- 
ability to  appreciate  the  logical  value  of  scientific 
facts  by  asking :  "  Where  is  the  evidence,  scien- 
tific or  other,  that  there  was* evolution?  We  see 
these  fossils  (those  of  the  horse).  Huxley  says 
they  are  as  they  are  because  the  higher  evolved 
itself  out  of  the  lower;  we  say  they  are  as  they 
are  because  God  created  tnem  in  series."  To  re- 
cur to  the  former  illustration,  it  is  as  if  the  Indian 
should  show  Dr.  Taylor  the  marks  on  which  he 
relied  in  his  induction,  and  the  doctor  should 
calmly  reply :  "  I  see  the  marks ;  you  say  they 
were  made  .by  a  man's  foot  in  walking;  I,  who 
have  never  given  any  attention  to  the  subject,  and 
have  never  been  in  the  woods  before,  say  they 
were  made  by  the  rain."  The  fact  is  that  if  there 
were  any  weight  whatever  in  this  kind  of  talk — if 
no  equality  of  knowledge  were  necessary  between 
two  disputants — it  would  enable  an  ignorant  field- 
hand  to  sweep  away  in  one  sentence  the  whole 
science  of  geology  and  palaeontology,  and  even 
astronomy,  and  to  dispose  of  every  conclusion  on 
any  subject  drawn  from  a  skilled  and  experienced 
balancing  of  probabilities,  or  nice  mathematical 


CIRCUMSTANTIAL  EVIDENCE  127 

calculation,  by  simply  saying  that  he  was  not  sat- 
isfied with  the  proofs. 

Dr.  Taylor's  reasons  for  believing  that  the  ap- 
pearance of  fossil  horses  with  a  diminishing  num- 
ber of  toes  is  caused  by  the  creation  at  separate 
periods  of  a  four-,  a  three-,  a  two-,  and  a  one-toed 
horse  are,  he  says,  "  personal,  philosophical,  his- 
torical," and  he  opposes  them  with  the  utmost  ap- 
parent sincerity  to  Huxley's  assertion  that  "  there 
can  be  no  scientific  evidence "  of  such  creation. 
The  "  personal  reason  "  for  believing  in  successive 
creations  of  sets  of  horses  with  a  varying  number 
of  toes  can,  of  course,  only  be  the  reason  so  often 
urged  in  ball-room  disputation — that  "I  feel  it 
must  be  so  ;  "  the  "  philosophic  reason  "  can  only 
be  the  one  with  which  those  who  have  frequented 
the  society  of  metaphysicians  are  very  familiar, 
namely,  a  deduction  from  some  eminent  specula- 
tor's opinion  about  the  nature  of  the  Supreme 
Being,  the  conclusion  being  apparently  that  if  the 
Creator  wished  to  diminish  the  number  of  a 
horse's  toes,  it  would  not  do  for  him  to  let  one 
drop  into  disuse  and  so  gradually  disappear,  but 
he  would  have  to  make  a  new  horse,  on  a  new 
design.  What  Dr.  Taylor  means  by  the  "  histor- 
ical reason  "  we  can  only  conjecture  from  his  say- 
ing that  it  is  of  the  same  order  as  his  historical 
reason  for  believing  "  that  the  Bible  is  the  Word 


128  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

of  God."  The  historical  reason  for  this,  we  pre- 
sume, is  that  there  are  various  literary  and  tra- 
ditional proofs  that  the  Old  Testament  was  held 
to  be  the  Word  of  God  by  the  Jewish  nation  at  a 
very  early  period,  and  was  by  them  transmitted 
as  such  to  the  modern  Christian  world,  and  that 
many  of  the  prophecies  contained  in  it  have  re- 
ceived partial  or  a  complete  fulfilment.  But  how 
by  a  process  of  this  kind,  partly  literary  and 
partly  conjectural,  and  attended  by  great  difficul- 
ties at  every  step,  he  would  reach  a  fact  of  pre- 
historic times  of  so  much  gravity  as  creation  in 
series,  we  think  it  would  puzzle  Dr.  Taylor  to  ex- 
plain. Indeed,  the  mere  production  in  a  contro- 
versy of  this  nature  of  these  vague  fancies,  half 
pious,  half  poetical,  conjured  up  in  most  cases  as 
a  help  to  mental  peace,  by  a  leading  minister  in 
the  character  of  a  logician,  is  a  very  remarkable 
proof  of  the  extent  of  those  defects  in  clerical  edu- 
cation to  which  we  recently  called  attention. 


TYNDALL  AND  THE  THEOLOGIANS 

THE  recent  address  delivered  by  Professor  Tyn- 
dall  before  the  British  Association  at  Belfast,  in 
which  he  "confessed"  that  he  "prolonged  the 
vision  backward  across  the  boundary  of  experi- 
mental evidence,  and  discerned  in  matter  the 
promise  and  potency  of  every  quality  and  form  of 
life,"  produced  one  by  no  means  very  surprising 
result.  Dr.  Watts,  a  professor  of  theology  in  the 
Presbyterian  College  in  that  city,  was  led  by  it  to 
offer  to  read  before  the  Biological  Section  of  the 
Association  a  paper  containing  a  plan  of  his  own 
for  the  establishment  of  "  peace  and  co-operation 
between  science  and  religion."  The  paper  was, 
as  might  have  been  expected,  declined.  The 
author  then  read  it  before  a  large  body  of  relig- 
ious people,  who  apparently  liked  it,  and  they 
passed  him  a  vote  of  thanks.  The  whole  religious 
world,  indeed,  is  greatly  excited  against  both  Tyn- 
dall  and  Huxley  for  their  performances  on  this 
occasion,  and  papers  by  no  means  in  sympathy 
with  the  religious  world — the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  for 
9 


130  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

instance — are  very  severe  on  them  for  having  ft  re- 
course to  a  style  of  oratory  and  disquisition  more 
appropriate  to  the  chapel  than  the  lecture-room," 
or,  in  other  words,  for  using  the  meetings  of  the 
Association  for  a  sort  of  propagandism  not  much 
superior  in  method  to  that  of  theological  mission- 
aries, and  thus  challenging  the  theologians  to  a 
conflict  which  may  make  it  necessary,  in  the  in- 
terest of  fair  play,  to  add  a  theological  section  to 
the  Association.  Of  course,  when  Professor  Tyn- 
dall  passed  "  beyond  the  boundary  of  experimental 
evidence,"  and  began  to  see  with  his  "  mind's  eye  " 
instead  of  with  the  ;miscroscope  and  telescope,  he 
got  into  a  region  in  which  the  theologian  is  not 
only  more  at  home  than  he,  but  which  theology 
claims  as  its  exclusive  domain,  and  in  which  min- 
isters look  on  physicists  as  intruders. 

But  then,  Dr.  Watts's  "  plea  for  peace  and  co- 
operation between  science  and  religion  "  is  one  of 
many  signs  that  theologians  are,  in  spite  of  all 
that  has  as  yet  been  said,  hardly  alive  to  the  exact 
nature  of  the  attitude  they  occupy  toward  science. 
They  evidently  look  upon  scientifie  men  as  they 
look  on  a  hostile  school  of  theologians — as  the 
Princeton  men  look  on  the  Yale  men,  for  instance, 
or  the  New  looked  on  the  Old  School  Presbyteri- 
ans, or  the  Calvinists  on  the  Arminians — that  is,  as 
persons  having  a  common  standard  of  orthodoxy, 


TYNDALL  AND   THE  THEOLOGIAN'S  131 

but  differing  somewhat  in  their  method  of  apply- 
ing it,  and  who  may,  therefore,  be  induced  from 
considerations  of  expediency  to  suppress  all  out- 
ward marks  of  divergence  and  work  together  har- 
moniously for  the  common  end.  All  schools  of 
theology  seek  the  glory  of  God  and  salvation  of 
souls,  and,  this  being  the  case,  differences  on 
points  of  doctrine  do  seem  trifling  and  capable  of 
being  put  aside. 

It  is  this  way  of  regarding  the  matter  which  has 
led  Dr.  Watts  to  propose  an  alliance  between  re- 
ligion and  science,  and  which  produces  the  argu- 
ments one  sometimes  sees  in  defence  of  Christian- 
ity against  Positivism,  drawn  from  a  consideration 
of  the  services  which  Christianity  has  rendered  to 
the  race,  and  of  the  gloomy  and  desolate  condition 
in  which  its  disappearance  would  leave  the  world. 
Tyndall  and  Huxley  do  not,  however,  occupy  the 
position  of  religious  prophets  or  fathers.  They 
preside  over  no  church  or  other  organization. 
They  have  no  power  or  authority  to  draft  any 
creed  or  articles  which  will  bind  anybody  else, 
or  which  would  have  any  claims  on  anybody's 
reverence  or  adhesion.  No  person,  in  short,  is 
authorized  to  bring  science  into  an  alliance  with 
religion  or  with  anything  else.  Such  "  peace  and 
co-operation"  as  Dr.  Watts  proposed  would  be 
peace  and  co-operation  between  him  and  Professor 


i:J3  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

Tyndall,  or  between  the  theologians  and  the  Brit- 
ish Association,  but  "  peace  and  co-operation  be- 
tween science  and  religion  "  is  a  term  which  car- 
ries absurdity  on  its  face.  Science  is  simply  a 
body  of  facts  which  lead  people  familiar  with 
them  to  infer  the  existence  of  certain  laws.  How 
can  it,  therefore,  be  either  at  peace  or  war  with 
anybody,  or  co-operate  with  anybody?  What 
Professor  Tyndall  might  promise  would  be  either 
not  to  discover  any  more  facts,  or  to  discover  only 
certain  classes  of  facts,  or  to  draw  no  inferences 
from  facts  which  would  be  unfavorable  to  Dr. 
Watts's  theory  of  the  universe  ;  but  the  only  result 
of  this  would  be  that  Tyndall  would  lose  his  place 
as  a  scientific  man,  and  others  would  go  on  discov- 
ering the  facts  and  drawing  the  inferences. 

In  like  manner,  the  supposition  that  Christianity 
can  be  defended  against  Positivism  on  grounds  of 
expediency  implies  a  singular  conception  of  the 
mental  operations  of  those  persons  who  are  affected 
by  Positivist  theories,  and  indeed,  we  might  add, 
of  the  thinking  world  generally.  No  man  believes 
in  a  religion  simply  because  he  thinks  it  useful, 
and  therefore  no  nian's  real  adhesion  to  the  Chris- 
tian creed  can  be  secured  by  showing  him  how 
human  happiness  would  suffer  by  its  extinction. 
This  argument,  if  it  had  any  weight  at  all,  would 
only  induce  persons  either  to  pretend  to  be  Chris- 


TYNDALL  AND  THE  THEOLOGIANS      133 

tians  when  they  were  not,  or  to  refrain  from  assail- 
ing Christianity,  or  to  avoid  all  inquiries  which 
might  possibly  lead  to  sceptical  conclusions.  It  is 
therefore,  perhaps,  a  good  argument  to  address  to 
believers,  because  it  may  induce  them  to  suppress 
doubts  and  avoid  lines  of  thought  or  social  rela- 
tions likely  to  beget  doubt ;  but  it  is  an  utterly  fu- 
tile argument  to  address  to  those  who  have  already 
lost  their  faith.  Men  believe  because  they  are 
convinced ;  it  is  not  in  their  power  to  believe  from 
motives  of  prudence  or  from  public  spirit. 

However,  the  complaints  of  the  theologians  ex- 
cited by  JProfessor  Tyndall's  last  utterances  are 
not  wholly  unreasonable.  Science  has  done  noth- 
ing hitherto  to  give  it  any  authority  in  the  region 
of  the  unseen.  "  Beyond  the  boundary  of  experi- 
mental evidence "  one  man's  vision  is  about  as 
good  as  another's.  It  is  interesting  to  know  that 
Professor  Tyndall  there  "  discerns  in  matter  the 
potency  and  promise  of  every  quality  and  form  of 
life,"  but  only  because  he  is  a  distinguished  man, 
who  gives  much  thought  to  this  class  of  subjects 
and  occupies  a  very  prominent  place  in  the  public 
eye.  As  a  basis  for  belief  of  any  kind,  his  vision 
is  of  no  more  value  than  that  of  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  who  would  probably  in  that  region 
discern  the  promise  and  potency  of  every  form  of 
life  in  a  supreme  and  creative  intelligence.  Scien- 


134  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

tific  men  are  continually  pushing  back  the  limits 
of  our  knowledge  of  the  material  universe.  They 
have  during  the  last  eighty  years  made  an  enor- 
mous addition  to  the  sum  of  that  knowledge,  but 
they  have  not,  since  Democritus,  taken  away  one 
hair's-breadth  from  the  Mystery  which  lies  behind. 
In  fact,  their  labors  have  in  many  ways  deepened 
this  Mystery.  We  can  appeal  confidently  to  any 
candid  man  to  say,  for  instance,  whether  Darwin's 
theory  of  the  origin  of  life  and  the  evolution  of 
species  does  not  make  this  globe  and  its  inhabi- 
tants a  problem  vastly  darker  and  more  inscrutable 
than  the  Mosaic  account  of  the  creation.  Take, 
again,  the  light  thrown  on  the  constitution  of  the 
sun  by  the  spectroscope  ;  it  is  a  marvellous  addition 
to  our  knowledge  of  our  environment,  but  then, 
does  it  not  make  our  ignorance  as  to  the  origin  of 
the  sun  seem  deeper  ?  No  scientific  man  pretends 
that  any  success  in  discovery  will  ever  lead  the 
human  rnind  beyond  the  resolution  of  the  number 
of  laws  which  now  seem  to  govern  phenomena 
into  a  smaller  number;  but  if  we  reached  the 
limit  of  the  possible  in  that  direction  to-morrow, 
we  should  be  as  far  from  the  secret  of  the  universe 
as  ever.  When  we  have  all  got  to  the  blank  wall 
which  everybody  admits  lies  at  the  boundary  of 
experimental  evidence,  the  philosopher  will  know 
no  more  about  what  lies  beyond  than  the  peasant, 


135 

though  the  peasant  will  probably  do  then  what  he 
does  now — people  it  with  the  creatures  of  his 
imagination.  If  a  philosopher  in  our  day  likes  to 
anticipate  that  period,  and  hazards  the  conjecture 
that  matter  lies  beyond,  he  is  welcome  to  his 
guess,  but  it  ought  to  be  understood  that  it  is  only 
a  guess. 

The  danger  to  society  from  the  men  of  science 
does  not,  we  imagine,  lie  in  the  direction  in  which 
the  theologians  look  for  it.  We  do  not  think  they 
need  feel  particularly  troubled  by  Professor  Tyn- 
dall's  speculations  as  to  the  origin  of  things,  for 
these  speculations  are  very  old,  and  have,  after  all, 
only  a  remote  connection  with  human  affairs.  But 
there  are  signs  both  in  his  and  Professor  Huxley's 
methods  of  popularizing  science,  and  in  those  of  a 
good  many  of  their  followers,  that  we  may  fear  the 
growth  of  something  in  the  nature  of  a  scientific 
priesthood,  who,  tempted  by  the  great  facilities  for 
addressing  the  public  which  our  age  affords,  and 
to  which  nearly  every  other  profession  has  fallen 
a  victim,  will  no  longer  confine  themselves  to  their 
laboratories  and  museums  and  scientific  journals, 
but  serve  as  "  ministers  of  nature  "  before  great 
crowds  of  persons,  for  the  most  part  of  small 
knowledge  and  limited  capacity,  on  whom  their 
hints,  suggestions,  and  denunciations  will  have  a 
dangerously  stimulating  effect,  particularly  as  the 


136  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

contempt  of  scientific  men  for  what  is  called 
"  literature  " — that  is,  the  recorded  experience  of 
the  human  race  and  the  recorded  expression  of 
human  feelings — grows  every  year  stronger,  and 
exerts  more  and  more  influence  on  the  masses. 
The  number  of  dabblers  in  science — of  persons 
with  a  slight  smattering  of  chemistry,  geology,  bot- 
any, and  so  on — too,  promises  to  be  largely  in- 
creased for  some  time  to  come  by  the  arrangements 
of  one  sort  or  another  made  by  colleges  and 
schools  for  scientific  education  ;  and  though  there 
is  reason  to  expect  from  this  education  a  consider- 
able improvement  in  knowledge  of  the  art  of  rea- 
soning, there  is  also  reason  to  fear  a  considerable 
increase  of  dogmatic  temper,  of  eagerness  for  ex- 
perimentation in  all  fields,  and  of  scorn  for  the 
experience  of  persons  who  have  never  worked  in 
the  laboratory  or  done  any  deep-sea  dredging. 
Now,  whatever  views  we  may  hold  as  to  the  value 
of  science  in  general  and  in  the  long  run  to  the 
human  race,  and  in  particular  its  value  for  pur- 
poses of  legislation  and  social  economy,  which  we 
are  far  from  denying,  there  is  some  risk  that  lect- 
ures like  Professor  Huxley's  at  Belfast,  dressed 
up  for  promiscuous  crowds,  and  produced  with 
the  polite  scorn  of  infallibility,  in  which  the  de- 
struction of  moral  responsibility  is  broadly  hinted 
at  as  one  of  the  probable  results  of  researches  in 


137 

biology,  will  do  great  mischief.  For  what  does  it 
matter,  or  rather  ought  it  to  matter,  for  social 
purposes,  in  what  part  of  a  man's  system  his  con- 
science lies,  or  whether  pressure  on  a  particular 
portion  of  the  brain  may  convert  him  into  a  thief, 
when  we  know,  as  of  experience,  that  the  establish- 
ment of  good  courts  and  police  turns  a  robbers' 
den  into  a  hive  of  peaceful  industry,  and  when  we 
see  the  wonders  which  discipline  works  in  an  ig- 
norant crowd? 


THE  CHUECH  AND  SCIENCE 

A  CONSIDERABLE  body  of  the  graduates  of  the 
Irish  Catholic  University,  including  members  of 
the  legal  and  medical  professions,  presented  a  long 
and  solemn  memorial  to  Cardinal  Culleu  and  the 
other  Catholic  bishops  at  the  late  commencement 
of  that  institution,  which  throws  a  good  deal  of 
light  not  only  on  the  vexed  question  of  Catholic 
education  in  Ireland,  but  on  the  relations  of  the 
Catholic  Church  to  education  everywhere.  The 
memorial  examined  in  detail  the  management  of 
the  university,  which  it  pronounces  so  bad  as  to 
endanger  the  existence  of  the  college.  But  what 
it  most  complains  of  is  the  all  but  total  absence  of 
instruction  in  science.  The  memorialists  say  that 
the  neglect  of  science  by  the  university  has  af- 
forded a  very  plausible  argument  to  the  enemies  of 
the  university,  who  never  tire  of  repeating  that  the 
Catholic  Church  is  the  enemy  of  science,  and  that 
she  will  carry  out  her  usual  policy  in  Ireland  with 
respect  to  it ;  that  "  no  one  can  deny  that  the  Irish 
Catholics  are  miserably  deficient  in  scientific  edu- 


THE  CHURCH  AND  SCIENCE  139 

cation,  and  that  this  deficiency  is  extremely  galling 
to  them  ;  and,  in  a  commercial  sense,  involves  a 
loss  to  them,  while,  in  an  intellectual  sense,  it  in- 
volves a  positive  degradation."  They  speak  re- 
gretfully of  the  secession  of  Professor  Sullivan,  to 
take  the  presidency  of  the  Queen's  College,  Cork, 
and  declare  that  "  no  Irish-Catholic  man  of  science 
can  be  found  to  take  his  place."  They  then  go  on 
to  make  several  astounding  charges.  The  lecture- 
list  of  the  university  does  not  include  for  the  fac- 
ulty of  arts  a  single  professor  of  the  physical  or 
natural  sciences,  or  the  name  of  a  solitary  teach- 
er in  descriptive  geometry,  geology,  zoology,  com- 
parative anatomy,  mineralogy,  mining,  astronomy, 
philology,  ethnology,  mechanics,  electricity,  or  op- 
tics. Of  the  prizes  and  exhibitions,  the  number 
offered  in  classics  equals  that  of  those  offered  in 
all  other  studies  put  together,  while  in  other  uni- 
versities the  classical  prizes  do  not  exceed  one- 
fourth  of  the  whole.  They  wind  up  their  melan- 
choly recital  by  declaring  that  they  are  determined 
that  the  scientific  inferiority  of  Irish  Catholics 
shall  not  last  any  longer  ;  and  that  if  they  cannot 
obtain  a  scientific  education  in  their  own  universi- 
ties, they  will  seek  it  at  Trinity  or  the  Queen's 
Colleges,  or  study  it  for  themselves  in  the  works 
of  Haeckel,  Darwin,  Huxley,  Tyndall,  and  Lyell. 
They  make  one  other  singular  complaint,  viz.,  that 


140  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

no  provision  is  made  for  supplying  the  lay  students 
with  instruction  in  theology. 

It  ought  to  be  said  in  defence  of  the  cardinal 
and  the  bishops,  though  the  memorialists  probably 
could  not  venture  to  say  it,  that  the  church  hardly 
pretends  that  the  university  is  an  efficient  or 
complete  instrument  of  education.  It  has  been  in 
existence,  it  is  true,  twenty  years,  but  the  main 
object  of  its  promoters  during  this  period  has 
apparently  been  to  harass  or  frighten  the  govern- 
ment by  means  of  it  into  granting  them  an  endow- 
ment, or  giving  them  control  of  the  Queen's  Col- 
leges. Had  they  succeeded  in  this,  they  would 
doubtless  before  now  have  made  a  show  of  readi- 
ness to  afford  something  in  the  nature  of  scientific 
instruction,  because,  as  the  memorialists  remark, 
there  is  no  denying  "  that  the  physical  and  nat- 
ural sciences  have  become  the  chief  studies  of  the 
age."  But  the  memorialists  must  be  either  very 
simple-minded  or  very  ignorant  Catholics,  if  they 
suppose  that  any  endowment  or  any  pressure  from 
public  opinion  would  ever  induce  the  Catholic 
hierarchy  to  undertake  to  turn  out  students  who 
would  make  a  respectable  figure  among  the  scien- 
tific graduates  of  other  universities,  or  even  hold 
their  own  among  the  common  run  of  amateur 
readers  of  Huxley  and  Darwin  and  Tyndall. 
There  is  no  excuse  for  any  misunderstanding  as 


THE  CHURCH  AND  SCIENCE  141 

regards  the  policy  of  the  church  on  this  point. 
She  has  never  given  the  slightest  encouragement 
or  sanction  to  the  idea  which  so  many  Protestant 
divines  have  of  late  years  embraced,  that  theology 
is  a  progressive  science,  capable  of  continued  de- 
velopment in  the  light  of  newly  discovered  facts, 
and  of  gradual  adaptation  to  the  changing  phases 
of  our  knowledge  of  the  physical  universe.  She 
has  hundreds  of  times  given  out  as  absolute  truth 
a  certain  theory  of  the  origin  of  man  and  of  the 
globe  he  lives  on,  and  she  cannot  either  abandon 
it  or  encourage  any  study  or  habit  of  mind  which 
would  naturally  or  probably  lead  to  doubt  of  the 
correctness  of  this  theory,  or  of  the  church's  au- 
thority in  enunciating  it.  In  fact,  the  Pope,  who 
is  now  an  infallible  judge  in  all  matters  of  faith 
and  discipline,  has,  within  the  last  five  years,  in  the 
famous  "  Syllabus  "  of  modern  follies,  pronounced 
damnable  and  erroneous  nearly  all  the  methods 
and  opinions  by  which  Irish  or  any  other  Cath- 
olics could  escape  the  deficiency  in  scientific 
knowledge  which  they  say  they  find  so  injurious 
and  so  degrading.  It  is  safe  to  say,  therefore, 
that  a  Catholic  cannot  receive  an  education  which 
would  fit  him  to  acquire  distinction  among  scien- 
tific men  in  our  day,  without  either  incurring  ever- 
lasting damnation  or  running  the  risk  of  it.  Be- 
side a  danger  of,  this  kind,  of  course,  as  any  priest 


143  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

will  tell  him,  commercial  loss  and  social  inferior- 
ity are  small  matters. 

Of  course,  if  we  take  the  facts  of  a  great  many 
branches  of  physical  science  by  themselves,  it 
would  be  easy  enough  to  show  that  a  good  Catho- 
lic might  safely  accept  them.  But  no  man  can 
reach  these  facts  by  investigations  of  his  own,  or 
hold  to  them  intelligently  and  fruitfully,  without 
acquiring  intellectual  habits  and  making  use  of 
tests  which  the  church  considers  signs  of  a  re- 
bellious and  therefore  sinful  temper.  Moreover, 
nobody  who  has  attained  the  limits  of  our  pres- 
ent knowledge  in  chemistry,  geology,  comparative 
anatomy,  ethnography,  philology,  and  mythology 
can  stand  there  with  closed  eyes.  He  must  in- 
evitably peer  into  the  void  beyond,  and  would  be 
more  than  human  if  he  did  not  indulge  in  specu- 
lations as  to  the  history  oi  the  universe  and  its 
destiny  which  the  church  must  treat  as  endanger- 
ing his  salvation.  This  is  so  well  known  that  one 
reads  the  lamentations  of  these  Catholic  laymen 
with  considerable  surprise.  They  may  be  fairly 
supposed  to  know  something  of  church  history, 
and,  even  if  they  do  not,  they  must  profess  some 
knowledge  of  the  teaching  given  by  the  church  in 
those  universities  of  other  countries  which  she 
controls.  She  does  not  encourage  the  study  of 
natural  science  anywhere.  Mathematics  and  as- 


THE  CHURCH  AND  SCIENCE  143 

tronomy  she  looks  on  with  some  favor,  though  we 
do  not  know  how  the  spectroscope  may  have  af- 
fected her  toward  the  latter  ;  and  we  venture  to 
assert  that  these  are  the  only  fields  of  science  in 
which  any  Catholic  layman  attains  distinction 
without  forfeiting  his  standing  in  the  eyes  of  the 
clergy.  We  do  not  now  speak  of  the  French,  Ital- 
ian, and  German  Catholic  laymen  who  go  on  with 
their  investigations  without  caring  whether  the 
clergy  like  them  or  not,  and  without  taking  the 
trouble  to  make  any  formal  repudiation  of  the 
church's  authority  over  their  intellects.  We  sim- 
ply say  there  are  no  pious  Catholic  scientific  men 
of  any  note,  and  never  will  be  if  the  Catholic 
clergy  can  help  it,  and  the  lamentations  of  Cath- 
olics over  the  fact  are  logically  absurd. 

The  legislation  which  Prussia  is  now  putting 
into  force  on  the  subject  of  clerical  education  is 
founded  on  a  candid  recognition  of  the  church's 
position  on  this  matter.  Prince  Bismarck  is  well 
aware  that  in  no  seminary  or  college  controlled  by 
priests  is  there  any  chance  that  a  young  man  will 
receive  the  best  instruction  of  the  day  on  the  sub- 
jects in  which  the  modern  world  is  most  interested, 
and  by  which  the  affairs  of  the  State  are  most  in- 
fluenced. He  has,  therefore,  wisely  decided  that 
it  is  the  duty  of  the  State  to  see  that  men  who  still 
exert  as  much  power  over  popular  thought  as 


144  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

priests  do,  and  are  to  receive  State  pay  as  popular 
instructors,  shall  also  receive  the  best  obtainable 
secular  education  before  being  subjected  to  purely 
professional  training  in  the  theological  seminaries. 
The  desperation  of  the  fight  made  against  him  by 
the  clergy  is  due  to  their  well-grounded  belief  that 
in  order  to  get  a  young  man  in  our  time  to  swal- 
low a  fair  amount  of  Catholic  theology,  he  must 
be  caught  early  and  kept  close.  The  warfare 
which  is  raging  in  Prussia  is  one  which  has  broken 
out  in  every  country  in  which  the  government  has 
formal  relations  with  the  church. 

The  appearance  of  a  mutinous  spirit  among  the 
Irish  laity,  and  this  not  on  political  but  scientific 
subjects,  shows  that  the  poison  has  sunk  very  deep 
and  is  very  virulent ;  for  the  Irish  laity  have  been 
until  now  the  foremost  Catholics  in  the  world  in 
silence  and  submissiveness,  and  there  is  nothing  in 
ecclesiastical  history  which  can  equal  in  absurdity 
a  request,  addressed  to  Cardinal  Cullen,  that  he 
would  supply  them  with  the  kind  of  teaching 
which  other  men  get  from  Tyndall  and  Huxley. 
With  ecclesiastical  insubordination  arising  out  of 
differences  on  matters  of  doctrine  or  discipline, 
such  as  that  manifested  by  the  Old  Catholics,  it  is 
comparatively  easy  to  deal.  Schismatics  can  be 
excommunicated  by  an  authority  which  they  have 
themselves  venerated,  and  from  an  organization  in 


THE  CHURCH  AND  SCIENCE  145 

which  they  loved  to  live  and  would  fain  have  died. 
But  over  wanderers  into  the  fields  of  science  the 
church  loses  all  hold.  Hgr^weapons  are  theJest 
of  the  jnuseum  and  the  laboratory^  and  her  lore 
the  babbling  of  thq  ignorant  or  blind. 
10 


THE  CHUKCH  AND  GOOD  CONDUCT 

THE  Episcopal  Church,  at  the  late  Triennial 
Convention,  took  up  and  determined  to  make  a 
more  vigorous  effort  to  deal  with  the  problem  pre- 
sented by  the  irreligion  of  the  poor  and  the  dis- 
honesty of  church-members.  It  is  an  unfortunate 
and,  at  first  sight,  somewhat  puzzling  circumstance, 
that  so  many  of  the  culprits  in  the  late  cases  of 
fraud  and  defalcation  should  have  been  professing 
Christians,  and  in  some  cases  persons  of  unusual 
ecclesiastical  activity,  and  that  this  activity  should 
apparently  have  furnished  no  check  whatever  to 
the  moral  descent.  It  is  proposed  to  meet  the 
difficulty  by  more  preaching,  more  prayer,  and 
greater  use  of  lay  assistance  in  church  -  work. 
There  is  nothing  very  new,  however,  about  the 
difficulty.  There  is  hardly  a  year  in  which  it  is 
not  deplored  at  meetings  of  church  organizations, 
and  in  which  solemn  promises  are  not  made  to  de- 
vise some  mode  of  keeping  church-members  up  to 
their  professions,  and  gathering  more  of  the  church- 
less  working-classes  into  the  fold  ;  but  somehow 


THE  CHURCH  AND   GOOD  CONDUCT  147 

there  is  not  much  visible  progress  to  be  recorded. 
The  church  scandals  multiply  in  spite  of  pastors 
and  people,  and  the  workingmen  decline  to  show 
themselves  at  places  of  worship,  although  the  num- 
ber of  places  of  worship  and  of  church-members 
steadily  increases. 

We  are  sorry  not  to  notice  in  any  of  the  discus- 
sions on  the  subject  a  more  frank  and  searching 
examination  of  the  reason  why  religion  does  not 
act  more  powerfully  as_a  rule  of  conduct.  Until 
such  an  examination  is  made,  and  its  certain  re- 
sults boldly  faced  by  church  reformers,  the  church 
cannot  become  any  more  of  a  help  to  right  living 
than  it  is  now,  be  this  little  or  much.  The  first 
thing  which  such  an  examination  would  reveal  is  a 
thing  which  is  in  everybody's  mind  and  on  every- 
body's tongue  in  private,  but  which  is  apt  to  be 
evaded  or  only  slightly  alluded  to  at  ecclesiasti- 
cal synods  and  conventions — we  mean  the  loss  of 
faith  in  the  dogmatic  part  of  Christianity.  People 
do  not  believe  in  the  fall,  the  atonement,  the 
resurrection,  and  a  future  state  of  reward  and 
punishment  at  all,  or  do  not  believe  in  them 
with  the  certainty  and  vividness  which  are 
needed  to  make  faith  a  constant  influence  on 
man's  daily  life.  They  do  not  believe  they  will  be 
damned  for  sin  with  the  assurance  they  once  did, 
and  they  are  consequently  indifferent  to  most  of 


148  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

what  is  said  to  them  of  the  need  of  repentance. 
They  do  not  believe  the  story  of  Christ's  life  and 
the  theory  of  his  character  and  attributes  given  in 
the  New  Testament,  or  they  regard  them  as  merely 
a  picturesque  background  to  his  moral  teachings, 
about  which  a  Christian  may  avoid  coming  to  any 
positive  conclusion. 

No  man  who  keeps  himself  familiar  with  the 
intellectual  and  scientific  movements  of  the  day, 
however  devout  a  Christian  he  may  be,  likes  to 
question  himself  as  to  his  beliefs  about  these  mat- 
ters, or  would  like  to  have  to  define  accurately 
where  his  faith  ended  and  his  doubts  began.  If 
he  is  assailed  in  discussion  by  a  sceptic  and  his 
combativeness  roused,  he  will  probably  proclaim 
himself  an  implicit  and  literal  acceptor  of  the 
gospel  narratives;  but  he  will  not  be  able  to 
maintain  this  mental  attitude  alone  in  his  own 
room.  The  effort  that  has  been  made  by  Unitari- 
ans and  others  to  meet  this  difficulty  by  making 
Christ's  influence  and  authority  rest  on  his  moral 
teachings  and  example,  without  the  support  of  a 
divine  nature  or  mission  or  sacrifice,  has  failed. 
The  Christian  Church  cannot  be  held  together  as  a 
great  social  force  by  his  teaching  or  example  as  a 
moral  philosopher.  A  church  organized  on  this 
theory  speedily  becomes  a  lecture  association  or  a 
philanthropic  club,  of  about  as  much  aid  to  con- 


THE  CHURCH  AND   GOOD   CONDUCT  149 

duct  as  Freemasonry.  Christ's  sermons  need  the 
touch  of  supernatural  authority  to  make  them  im- 
pressive enough  for  the  work  of  social  regeneration, 
and  his  life  was  too  uneventful  and  the  society  in 
which  he  lived  too  simple,  to  give  his  example  real 
power  over  the  imagination  of  a  modern  man  who 
regards  him  simply  as  a  social  reformer. 

This  decline  of  faith  in  Christian  dogma  and 
history  has  not,  however,  produced  by  any  means 
a  decline  in  religious  sentiment,  but  it  has  de- 
prived religion  of  a  good  deal  of  its  power  as  a 
means  of  moral  discipline.  Moral  discipline  is 
acquired  mainly  by  the  practice  of  doing  what  one 
does  not  like  to  do,  under  the  influence  of  mastering 
fear  or  hope.  The  conquest  of  one's  self,  of  which 
Christian  moralists  speak  so  much,  is  simply  the 
acquisition  of  the  power  of  doing  easily  things  to 
which  one's  natural  inclinations  are  opposed ;  and 
in  this  work  the  mass  of  mankind  are  powerfully 
aided — indeed,  we  may  say,  have  to  be  aided — by 
tb^  prospect  of  re  ward  or  pipjsjiniept;.  The  won- 
derful results  which  are  achieved  in  the  army,  by 
military  authority,  in  inspiring  coarse  and  com- 
mon natures  with  a  spirit  of  the  loftiest  devotion, 
are  simply  due  to  the  steady  application  by  day 
and  by  night  of  a  punishing  and  rewarding  au- 
thority. The  loss  of  this,  or  its  great  enfeeble- 
ment,  undoubtedly  has  deprived  the  church  of  a 


150  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

large  portion  of  its  means  of  discipline,  and  re- 
duced it  more  nearly  to  the  role  of  a  stimulater 
and  gratifier  of  certain  tender  emotions.  It  con- 
tains a  large  body  of  persons  whose  religious  life 
consists  simply  of  a  succession  of  sensations  not 
far  removed  from  one's  enjoyment  of  music  and 
poetry ;  and  another  large  body,  to  whom  it  fur- 
I  nishes  refuge  and  consolation  of  a  vague  and  ill- 
I  defined  sort  in  times  of  sorrow  and  disappoint- 
f  nient.  To  these  persons  the  church  prayers  and 
j  hymns  are  not  trumpet-calls  to  the  •  battle-field, 
but  soothing  melodies,  which  give  additional  zest 
to  home  comforts  and  luxuries,  and  make  the 
sharper  demands  of  a  life  of  the  highest  integrity 
less  unbearable.  Nay,  the  case  is  rather  worse 
than  this.  We  have  little  doubt  that  this  senti- 
mental religion,  as  we  may  call  it,  in  many  cases 
deceives  a  man  as  to  his  own  moral  condition,  and 
hides  from  him  the  true  character  and  direction  of 
the  road  he  is  travelling,  and  furnishes  his^con- 
science_with  a  false  bottom.  The  revelations  of 
the  last  few  years  as  to  its  value  as  a  guide  in  the 
conduct  of  life  have  certainly  been  plain  and  de- 
plorable. 

The  evil  in  some  degree  suggests  the  remedy, 
though  we  do  not  mean  to  say  that  we  know  of 
any  complete  remedy.  Church-membership  ought 
to  involve  discipline  of  some  kind  in  order  to  fur- 


THE  CHURCH  AND   GOOD  CONDUCT  151 

nish  moral  aid.  It  ought,  that  is  to  say,  to  impose 
some  restraint  on  people's  inclinations,  the  opera- 
tion of  which  will  be  visible,  and  enforced  by  some 
external  sanction.  If,  in  short,  Christians  are  to 
be  regarded  as  more  trustworthy  and  as  living  on 
a  higher  moral  plane  than  the  rest  of  the  world, 
they  must  furnish  stronger  evidence  of  their  sin- 
cerity than  is  now  exacted  from  them,  in  the  shape 
of  plain  and  open  self-denial.  The  church,  in 
short,  must  be  an  organization  Jield  together  by 
some_stronger  ties  than  enjoyment  of  weekly  music 
and  oratory,  in  a  pretty  building,  and  alms-giving 
wlp'fth  entails  no  sacrifice  and  is  ^Qften_Qnly_a 
tickler  of  social  vanity.  There  is  in  monasticism 
a  suggestion  of  the  way  in  which  it  must  retain  its 
power  over  men's  lives,  and  be  enabled  to  furnish 
them  with  a  certificate  of  character.  Its  members 
will  have  to  have  a  good  deal  of  the  ascetic  about 
them,  but  without  any  withdrawal  from  the  world. 
How  to  attain  this  without  sacrificing  the  claims 
of  art,  and  denying  the  legitimacy  of  honestly  ac- 
quired material  power,  and,  in  fact,  restricting  in- 
dividual freedom  to  a  degree  which  the  habits  and 
social  theories  of  the  day  would  make  very  odious, 
is  the  problem  to  be  solved,  and,  it  is,  no  doubt, 
a  very  tough  one.  General  inculcation  of  "plain 
living"  will  not  solve  it,  as  long  as  "plain  living" 
is  not  defined  and  the  "  self-made  man "  who  has 


153 

made  a  great  fortune  and  spends  it  lavishly  is 
held  up  to  the  admiration  of  every  school-boy. 
The  church  has  been  making  of  late  years  a  gal- 
lant effort  to  provide  accommodation  for  the  suc- 
cessful, and  enable  them  to  be  good  Christians 
without  sacrificing  any  of  the  good  things  of  this 
life,  and,  in  fact,  without  surrendering  anything 
they  enjoy,  or  favoring  the  outside  public  with 
any  recognizable  proof  of  their  sincerity.  We  do 
not  say  that  this  is  reprehensible,  but  it  is  easy  to 
see  that  it  has  the  seeds  of  a  great  crop  of  scandals 
in  it.  Donations  in  an  age  of  great  munificence, 
and  horror  of  far-off  or  unattractive  sins,  like  the 
slaveholding  of  Southerners  and  the  intemperance 
of  the  miserable  poor,  are  not,  and  ought  not  to 
be,  accepted  as  signs  of  inward  and  spiritual 
grace,  and  of  readiness  to  scale  "  the  toppling 
crags  of  duty." 

The  conversion  of  the  working-classes,  too,  it  is 
safe  to  say,  will  never  be  accomplished  by  any 
ecclesiastical  organization  which  sells  cushioned 
pews  at  auction,  or  rents  them  at  high  rates,  and 
builds  million-dollar  churches  for  the  accommoda- 
tion of  one  thousand  worshippers.  The  passion 
for  equality  has  taken  too  strong  hold  of  the  work- 
ingman  to  make  it  possible  to  catch  him  with  cheap 
chapels  and  assistant  pastors.  He  will  not  seek 
salvation  in  forma  pauperis,  and  thinks  the  best 


THE  CHURCH  AND   GOOD  CONDUCT  153 

talent  in  the  ministerial  market  not  a  whit  too 
good  for  him.  He  not  unnaturally  doubts  the  sin- 
cerity of  Christians  who  are  not  willing  to  kneel 
beside  badly  dressed  persons  in  prayer  on  the  one 
day  of  the  week  when  prayer  is  public.  In  fact,  to 
fit  the  Protestant  Church  in  this  country  to  lay 
hold  of  the  laboring  population  a  great  process  of 
reconstruction  would  be  necessary.  The  congrega- 
tional system  would  have  to  be  abandoned  or 
greatly  modified,  the  common  fund  made  larger 
and  administered  in  a  different  way.  There  would 
have,  in  short,  to  be  a  close  approach  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  organization,  and  the  churches 
would  have  to  lose  the  character  of  sociaLclubs, 
whichjiQW  makes  them  so  comfortable^ and  attrac- 
tive. Well-to-do  Christians  would  have  to  sacri- 
fice their  tastes  in  a  dozen  ways,  and  give  up  the 
expectation  of  aesthetic  pleasure  in  public  worship. 
There  cannot  be  a  vast  Gothic  cathedral  for  the 
multitude  in  every  city.  The  practice  of  the 
church  would  have  to  be  forced  up  to  its  own 
theory  of  its  character  and  mission,  which  would 
involve  serious  collision  with  some  of  the  most 
deeply  rooted  habits  and  ideas  of  modern  social 
and  political  life.  That  there  is  any  immediate 
probability  of  this  we  do  not  believe.  Until  it  is 
brought  about,  its  members  must  make  up  their 
minds  to  have  religious  professions  treated  by 


154  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

some  as  but  slight  guarantees  of  character,  and  by 
others  as  but  cloaks  of  wrong-doing,  hard  as  this 
may  be  for  that  large  majority  to  whom  they  are 
an  honest  expression  of  sure  hopes  and  noble 
aims. 


E6LE  OF  THE    UNIVERSITIES   IN  POL- 
ITICS 

MB.  GALTON,  in  his  work  on  "Hereditary  Gen- 
ius," has  drawn  attention  in  a  striking  chapter  to 
the  effect  which  the  systematic  destruction  and  ex- 
patriation, by  the  Inquisition  or  the  religious  in- 
tolerance of  the  government,  of  the  leading  men  of 
the  nation — its  boldest  thinkers,  most  ardent  in- 
vestigators, most  prudent  and  careful  and  ingenious 
workers,  in  generation  after  generation — had  in 
bringing  about  the  moral  and  political  decline  of 
the  three  great  Latin  countries,  France,  Spain,  and 
Italy — a  decline  of  which,  in  the  case  of  the  two 
former  at  least,  we  have  probably  not  seen  the  end. 
The  persons  killed  or  banished  amounted  only  to 
a  few  thousands  every  year,  but  they  were — no 
matter  from  what  rank  they  came — the  flower  of 
the  population :  the  men  whose  labor  and  whose 
influence  enabled  the  State  to  keep  its  place  in  the 
march  of  civilization.  The  picture  is  very  valua- 
ble (particularly  just  now,  when  there  is  so  great  a 
disposition  to  revel  in  the  consciousness  of  vast 


156  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

numbers),  as  calling  attention  to  the  smallness  of 
the  area  within  which,  after  all,  the  sources  of  na- 
tional greatness  and  progress  are  to  be  sought. 
The  mind  which  keeps  the  mass  in  motion,  which 
saves  and  glorifies  it,  would  most  probably,  if  we 
could  lay  bare  the  secret  of  national  life,  be  found 
in  the  possession  of  a  very  small  proportion  of  the 
people,  though  not  in  any  class  in  particular — 
neither  among  the  rich  nor  the  poor,  the  learned 
nor  simple,  capitalists  nor  laborers ;  but  the  ab- 
straction of  these  few  from  the  sum  of  national 
existence,  though  it  would  hardly  be  noticed  in  the 
census,  would  produce  a  fatal  languor,  were  the 
nation  not  constantly  receiving  fresh  blood  from 
other  countries. 

This  element  was  singled  out  with  considerable 
accuracy  in  France  and  Spain  by  religious  perse- 
cution. It  would  happily  be  impossible  to  devise 
any  process  of  selection  one-quarter  as  efficient  in 
our  age  or  in  this  country.  The  one  we  have  been 
using  for  the  last  twenty  years,  and  on  which  a 
good  deal  of  popular  reliance  has  been  placed,  is 
the  accumulation  of  wealth ;  and  under  this  "  the 
self-made  man" — that  is,  the  man  who,  starting 
in  life  ignorant  and  poor,  has  made  a  large  fort- 
une, and  got  control  of  a  great  many  railroads 
and  mines  and  factories — has  risen  into  the  front 
rank  of  eminence.  The  events  of  the  last  five 


ROLE  OF  THE   UNIVERSITIES  IN  POLITICS     157 

years,  however,  have  had  a  damaging  effect  on 
his  reputation,  and  he  now  stands  as  low  as  his 
worst  enemies  could  desire.  As  he  declines,  the 
man  of  some  kind  of  training  naturally  rises ;  and 
it  would  be  running  no  great  risk  to  affirm  that 
the  popular  mind  inclines  more  than  it  has  usually 
done  to  the  belief  that  trained  men — that  is,  men 
who  have  been  prepared  for  their  work  by  teach- 
ing on  approved  methods — are  after  all  the  most 
valuable  possession  a  country  can  have,  and  that 
a  country  is  well  or  ill  off  in  proportion  as  they 
are  numerous  or  the  reverse.  One  does  not  need 
to  travel  very  far  from  this  position  to  reach  the 
conclusion  that  there  is  probably  no  way  in  which 
we  could  strike  so  deadly  a  blow  at  the  happiness 
and  progress  of  the  United  States  as  by  sweeping 
away,  by  some  process  of  proscription  kept  up  dur- 
ing a  few  generations,  the  graduates  of  the  prin- 
cipal colleges.  In  no  other  way  could  we  make  so 
great  a  drain  on  the  reserved  force  of  character, 
ambition,  and  mental  culture  which  constitutes  so 
large  a  portion  of  the  national  vitality.  They 
would  not  be  missed  at  the  polls,  it  is  true,  and 
if  they  were  to  run  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency 
to-morrow  their  vote  would  excite  great  merriment 
among  the  politicians  ;  but  if  they  were  got  rid  of 
regularly  for  forty  or  fifty  years  in  the  manner  we 
have  suggested,  and  nothing  came  in  from  the  out- 


158  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

side  to  supply  their  places,  the  politicians  would 
somehow  find  that  they  themselves  had  less  public 
money  to  vote  or  steal,  less  national  aspiration  to 
trade  upon,  less  national  force  to  direct,  less  na- 
tional dignity  to  maintain  or  lose,  and  that,  in  fact, 
by  some  mysterious  process,  they  were  getting  to 
be  of  no  more  account  in  the  world  than  their 
fellows  in  Guatemala  or  Costa  Kica. 

There  will  come  to  the  colleges  of  the  United 
States  during  the  next  fifty  years  a  larger  and 
larger  number  of  men  who  either  strongly  desire 
training  for  themselves  or  are  the  sons  of  men 
who  are  deeply  sensible  of  its  advantages,  and 
therefore  are  at  the  head  of  families  which  possess 
and  appreciate  the  traditions  of  high  civilization, 
and  would  like  to  live  in  them  and  contribute 
their  share  to  perpetuating  them — and  they  will 
not  come  from  any  one  portion  of  the  country. 
There  are,  unhappily,  "  universities  "  in  all  parts  of 
the  Union,  but  there  is  hardly  a  doubt  that  as  the 
means  of  communication  are  improved  and  cheap- 
ened, and  as  the  real  nature  and  value  of  the  uni- 
versity education  become  better  understood,  the 
tendency  to  use  the  small  local  institutions  pass- 
ing by  this  name  as,  what  they  really  are,  high 
schools,  and  resort  to  the  half-dozen  colleges 
which  can  honestly  call  themselves  universities, 
will  increase.  The  demands  which  modern  cult- 


ROLE  OF  THE   UNIVERSITIES  IN  POLITICS     159 

ure,  owing  to  the  advance  of  science  and  research 
in  every  field,  now  makes  on  a  university,  in  the 
shape  of  professors,  books,  apparatus,  are  so  great 
that  only  the  largest  and  wealthiest  institutions 
can  pretend  to  meet  them,  and  in  fact  there  is 
something  very  like  false  pretence  in  the  promise 
to  do  so  held  out  to  poor  students  by  many  of  the 
smaller  colleges.  These  colleges  doubtless  do  a 
certain  amount  of  work  very  creditably ;  but  they 
are  uncandid  in  saying  that  they  give  a  university 
education,  and  in  issuing  diplomas  purporting  to 
be  certificates  that  any  such  education  has  either 
been  sought  or  received.  The  idea  of  maintaining 
a  university  for  the  sake  of  the  local  glory  of  it  is 
a  form  of  folly  which  ought  not  to  be  associated 
with  education  in  any  stage.  These  considerations 
are  now  felt  to  be  so  powerful  in  other  countries 
that  they  threaten  the  destruction  of  a  whole  batch 
of  universities  in  Italy  which  have  come  down 
famous  and  honored  from  the  Middle  Ages  and 
have  sent  out  twenty  generations  of  students,  and 
they  are  causing  even  the  very  best  of  the  smaller 
universities  in  Germany,  great'  and  efficient  as 
many  of  them  are,  to  tremble  for  their  existence. 

There  is  no  interest  of  learning,  therefore,  which 
would  not  be  served  by  the  greater  concentration 
of  the  resources  of  the  country  as  regards  univer- 
sity education,  still  less  is  there  any  interest  of 


160  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

society  or  politics.  It  is  of  the  last  importance 
that  the  class  of  men  from  all  parts  of  the  country 
whom  the  universities  send  out  into  the  world 
should  as  far  as  possible  be  educated  together, 
and  start  on  their  careers  with  a  common  stock  of 
traditions,  tastes,  and  associations.  Much  as  steam 
and  the  telegraph  have  done,  and  will  do,  to  dimin- 
ish for  administrative  purposes  the  size  of  the  Re- 
public, and  to  simplify  the  work  of  government, 
they  cannot  prevent  the  creation  of  a  certain  di- 
versity of  interests,  and  even  of  temperament  and 
manners,  through  differences  of  climate  and  soil 
and  productions.  There  will  never  come  a  time 
when  we  shall  not  have  more  or  less  of  such  folly 
as  the  notion  that  the  South  and  West  need  more 
money  than  the  East,  because  they  have  less  capi- 
tal, or  the  struggle  of  some  parts  of  the  country 
for  a  close  market  against  other  parts  which  seek 
an  open  one.  Nothing  but  a  reign  of  knowledge 
and  wisdom,  such  as  centuries  will  not  bring,  will 
prevent  States  on  the  Gulf  or  on  the  Pacific  from 
fancying  that  their  interests  are  not  identical  with 
those  of  the  Northern  Atlantic,  and  nothing  but 
profound  modifications  in  the  human  constitution 
will  ever  bring  the  California  wheat -raiser  into 
complete  sympathy  with  the  New  England  shoe- 
maker. 

The  work  of  our  political  system  for  ages   to 


ROLE  OF  THE   UNIVERSITIES  IN  POLITICS      161 

come  will  consist  largely  in  keeping  these  differ- 
ences in  check ;  and  in  doing  it,  it  will  need  all 
the  help  it  can  get  from  social  and  educational 
influences.  It  ought  to  be  the  aim,  therefore,  of 
the  larger  institutions  of  learning  to  offer  every 
inducement  in  their  power  to  students  from  all 
parts  of  the  Union,  and  more  especially  from  the 
South,  as  the  region  which  is  most  seriously 
threatened  by  barbarism,  and  in  which  the  sense 
of  national  unity  and  the  hold  of  national  tradi- 
tions on  the  popular  mind  are  now  feeblest.  We 
at  the  North  owe  to  the  civilized  men  at  the  South 
who  are  now,  no  matter  what  their  past  faults  or 
delusions  may  have  been,  struggling  to  save  a 
large  portion  of  the  Union  from  descent  into 
heathen  darkness  and  disorder,  the  utmost  help 
and  consideration.  We  owe  them  above  all  a  free 
and  generous  welcome  to  a  share  in  whatever 
means  of  culture  we  have  at  our  disposal,  and 
ought  to  offer  it,  as  far  as  is  consistent  with  our 
self-respect,  in  a  shape  that  will  not  wound  theirs. 
The  question  of  the  manner  of  doing  this  came 
up  incidentally  at  Harvard  the  other  day,  at  the 
dedication  of  the  great  hall  erected  in  memory  of 
the  graduates  of  the  university  who  died  in  the 
war.  The  hall  is  to  be  used  for  general  college 
purposes,  for  examinations,  and  some  of  the  cere- 
monial of  commencement,  as  well  as  for  dinner,  and 
11 


162  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

a  portion  of  the  walls  is  covered  with  tablets  bear- 
ing the  names  of  those  to  whose  memory  it  is  ded- 
icated. The  question  whether  the  building  would 
keep  alive  the  remembrance  of  the  civil  war  in  any 
way  in  which  it  is  inexpedient  to  keep  it  alive, 
or  in  any  way  which  would  tend  to  keep  Southern 
students  away  from  the  university,  has  been  often 
asked,  and  by  some  answered  in  the  affirmative. 
General  Devens,  who  presided  at  the  alumni  din- 
ner, gave  full  and  sufficient  answer  to  those  who 
find  fault  with  the  rendering  of  honor  on  the 
Northern  side  to  those  who  fell  in  its  cause ;  but 
General  Bartlett  —  who  perhaps  more  than  any 
man  living  is  qualified  to  speak  for  those  who  died 
in  the  war — uttered,  in  a  burst  of  unpremeditated 
eloquence,  at  the  close  of  the  proceedings,  the  real 
reason  why  no  Southern  man  need,  and  we  hope 
will  never,  feel  hurt  by  Northern  memorials  of  the 
valor  and  constancy  of  Northern  soldiers.  It  is 
not  altogether  the  cause  which  ennobles  fighting ; 
it  is  the  spirit  in  which  men  fight ;  and  no  horror 
of  the  objects  of  the  Southern  insurrection  need 
prevent  anybody  from  admiring  or  lamenting  the 
gallant  men  who  honestly,  loyally,  and  from  a 
sense  of  duty  perished  in  its  service.  It  is  not 
given  to  the  wisest  and  best  man  to  choose  the 
right  side  ;  but  the  simplest  and  humblest  knows 
whether  it  is  his  conscience  which  bids  him  lay 


MOLE  OF  THE   UNIVERSITIES  IN  POLITICS     163 

down  his  life.  And  this  test  may  be  applied  by 
each  side  to  all  the  victims  of  the  late  conflict 
without  diminishing  by  one  particle  its  faith  in 
the  justice  of  its  own  cause.  Moreover,  as  Gen- 
eral Bartlett  suggested,  the  view  of  the  nature  of 
the  struggle  which  is  sure  to  gain  ground  all  over 
the  country  as  the  years  roll  on  is  that  it  was  a 
fierce  and  passionate  but  inevitable  attempt  to 
settle  at  any  cost  a  controversy  which  could  be 
settled  in  no  other  way ;  and  that  all  who  shared 
in  it,  victors  or  vanquished,  helped  to  save  the 
country  and  establish  its  government  on  sure  and 
lasting  foundations.  This  feeling  cannot  grow 
without  bringing  forcibly  to  mind  the  fact  that  the 
country  was  saved  through  the  war  that  virtue 
might  increase,  that  freedom  might  spread  and  en- 
dure, and  that  knowledge  might  rule,  and  not  that 
politicians  might  have  a  treasury  to  plunder  and 
marble  halls  to  exchange  their  vituperation  in ; 
thus  uniting  the  best  elements  of  Northern  and 
Southern  society  by  the  bonds  of  honest  indigna- 
tion as  well  as  of  noble  hopes. 


THE  HOPKINS  UNIVEKSITY 

THE  Baltimore  American,  discussing  the  plan 
of  the  Hopkins  University  in  that  city,  says :  "  The 
Nation  suggests  to  the  Board  of  Trustees  a  univer- 
sity that  would  leave  Latin,  Greek,  mathematics, 
and  the  elements  of  natural  science  out  of  its  cur- 
riculum." This  is  so  great  a  mistake  that  we  are 
at  a  loss  to  understand  how  it  could  have  been 
made.  The  Nation  has  never  suggested  anything 
of  the  kind.  The  university  which  the  Nation  has 
expressed  the  hope  the  trustees  would  found  is 
simply  a  university  with  such  a  high  standard  for 
admission  on  all  subjects  that  the  professors  would 
be  saved  the  necessity  of  teaching  the  rudiments 
of  either  Latin,  Greek,  mathematics,  or  natural 
science ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  the  country 
would  be  saved  considerable  waste  of  skilled  labor. 
The  reason  why  we  have  ventured  to  expect  this 
of  the  Hopkins  trustees  is  that  they  enjoy  the  all 
but  unprecedented  advantage  of  being  left  in  pos- 
session of  a  very  large  bequest,  with  complete  lib- 
erty, within  very  wide  limits,  as  to  the  disposition 


THE  HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY 


165 


of  it.  In  other  words,  they  are  to  found  a  univer- 
sity with  it,  but  as  to  the  kind  of  university  they 
may  exercise  their  discretion. 

That  this  is  a  very  exceptional  position  every- 
body familiar  with  the  history  of  American  col- 
leges knows.  All  the  older  colleges  are  bound  toi 
the  state,  or  to  certain  religious  denominations,  by 


f 


laws  or  usages  or  precedents  which  impose  a  cer-/7    // 


tain  tolerably  fixed  character  either  on  the  subr 
jects  or  on  the  mode  of  teaching  them,  or  on  both^ 
They  have  traditions  to  uphold,  or  denominational 
intereststo  care  for,  or  political  prejudices  to  sat- 
isfy. The  newer  ones,  on  the  otner  hand,  are  apt 
to  have  incurred  a  bondage  even  worse  still,  in 
having  to  carry  out  the  wishes  of  a  founder  who, 
in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  had  only  a 
faint  notion  of  the  nature  and  needs  of  a  university, 
and  in  endowing  one  sought  rather  to  erect  a  mon- 
ument to  his  memory  than  to  found  a  seat  of  learn- 
In so  far  as  he  was  interested  in  the  curricu- 


n. 


lum,  he  probably  desired  that  it  should  be  such 
as  would  satisfy  some  want  which  he  himself  felt, 
or  thought  he  felt,  in  early  life,  or  should  diffuse 
some  social  or  religious  or  political  crotchet  on 
which  his  fancy  had  secretly  fed  during  his  years 
of  active  exertion,  and  on  the  success  of  which  he 
came  to  think,  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  that  the 
best  interests  of  the  community  were  dependent. 


166  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

The  number  of  these  honorably  ambitious  but  ill- 
informed  and  somewhat  eccentric  testators  in- 
creases every  year,  as  the  country  grows  in  wealth 
and  the  habit  of  giving  to  public  objects  gains  in 
strength. 

The  consequence  is  that  we  are  threatened  with 
the  spectacle  during  the  coming  century  of  a  great 
waste  of  money  by  well-meaning  persons  in  the 
establishment  all  over  the  country  of  institutions 
calling  themselves  "  universities,"  which  are  either 
.so  feebly  equipped  as  rather  to  hinder  than  help 
the  cause  of  education,  or  so  completely  committed 
by  their  organization  to  the  propagation  of  certain 
social  orreligioulTtheories  as  to  deserve  lihe  appel- 
lation of  mission  stations  rather  than  pFcolleges. 
Education  is  now  an  art  of  exceeding  delicacy  and 
complexity.  To  master  it,  so  as  to  have  a  trust- 
worthy opinion  as  to  the  relative  value  of  studies 
and  as  to  the  best  mode  of  pursuing  them,  and  as 
to  the  organization  of  institutions  devoted  to  the 
work  of  instruction,  a  man  needs  both  learning 
and  experience.  The  giving  him  money  to  em- 
ploy in  his  special  work,  therefore,  without  leav- 
ing him  discretion  as  to  the  manner  in  which  he 
shall  use  it,  is  to  prepare  almost  certainly  for  its 
waste  in  more  than  one  direction.  To  make  the 
most  of  the  resources  of  the  country  for  educa- 
tional purposes,  it  is  necessary  above  all  things 


THE  HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY  167 

that  they  should  be  placed  at  the  disposal  of  those 
who  have  made  education  a  special  study,  and  who 
are  free,  as  we  understand  the  Hopkins  trustees  to 
be,  from  any  special  bias  or  bond,  and  are  ready 
or  willing  to  look  at  the  subject  from  every  side. 
Their  liberty,  of  course,  brings  with  it  great  re- 
sponsibility— all  the  greater  for  the  reasons  we 
have  been  enumerating. 

Now,  as  to  the  use  which  they  should  make  of 
this  liberty,  the  Baltimore  American  fears  that  if 
they  found  a  university  of  the  class  sketched  by 
us  some  weeks  ago,  "  the  people  of  Maryland 
would  be  greatly  disappointed — there  would  not 
be  over  fifty  students,"  and  "there  would  be  a 
great  outcry  against  the  investment  of  three  and 
a  half  millions  of  dollars  for  the  benefit  of  so  small 
a  number."  Whether  the  people  of  Maryland  will 
be  disappointed  or  not,  depends  on  the  amount 
of  consideration  they  give  the  matter.  If  they 
are  satisfied  that  the  foundation  of  such  a  univer- 
sity as  is  now  talked  of  is  the  best  use  that  can 
be  made  of  the  money,  they  will  not  be  disap- 
pointed, and  there  will  be  no  "  outcry "  at  all. 
Being  an  intelligent  people,  they  will  on  reflec- 
tion see  that  the  value  of  a  university  by  no 
means  depends  solely  on  the  proportion  borne  by 
the  number  of  its  students  to  the  amount  of  its 
revenues,  because,  judged  in  this  way — that  is,  as 


168  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

instruments  of  direct  popular  benefit — all  the  uni- 
versities in  the  country  might  be  pronounced  fail- 
ures. The  bulk  of  the  community  derives  no 
direct  benefit  from  them  at  all.  Harvard,  for  in- 
stance, has  an  endowment  of  about  five  million 
dollars,  we  believe,  and  the  total  number  of  the 
students  is  only  1,200,  while  the  population  of  the 
State  of  Massachusetts  is  1,500,000,  so  that,  even 
supposing  all  the  students  to  come  from  Massa- 
chusetts, which  they  do  not,  less  than  one  person 
in  every  thousand  profits  by  the  university. 

The  same  story  might  be  told  of  Yale  or  any  other 
college.  Considered  as  what  are  called  popular 
institutions — that  is,  institutions  from  which  every- 
body can  or  does  derive  some  calculable,  palpable 
benefit — the  universities  of  this  and  every  other 
country  are  useless,  and  there  ought  on  this  theory 
to  be  a  prodigious  "  outcry  "  against  them,  and  they 
ought,  on  the  principle  of  equality,  if  allowed  to 
exist  at  all,  to  be  allowed  to  exist  only  on  condi- 
tion that  they  will  give  a  degree,  or  at  least  offer 
an  education,  to  every  male  citizen  of  sound  mind. 
But  nobody  takes  this  view  of  them.  The  poor- 
est and  most  ignorant  hod-carrier  would  not  hold, 
if  asked,  that  because  he  cannot  go  to  college 
there  ought  to  be  no  colleges.  Sensible  people  in 
every  country  acknoAvledge  that  a  high  education 
can  in  the  nature  of  things  be  only  obtained  by  a 


THE  HOPKINS    UNIVERSITY  169 

very  small  proportion  of  the  population  ;  but  that 
the  few  who  seek  it,  and  can  afford  to  take  it, 
should  get  it,  and  should  get  it  of  the  best  quality, 
they  hold  to  be  a  public  benefit.  Now,  why  a 
public  benefit  ?  The  service  that  Harvard  or  Yale 
renders  to  the  community  certainly  does  not  lie 
simply  in  the  fact  that  it  qualifies  a  thousand 
young  men  every  year  to  earn  a  livelihood.  They 
would  earn  a  livelihood  whether  they  went  to  col- 
lege or  not.  The  vast  majority  of  men  earn  a 
livelihood  without  going  to  college  or  thinking  of 
it.  Indeed,  it  is  doubted  by  many  persons,  and 
with  much  show  of  reason,  wrhether  a  man  does 
not  earn  it  all  the  more  readily  for  not  going  to 
college  at  all  ;  and  as  regards  the  work  of  the 
world  of  all  kinds,  the  great  bulk  of  it  is  done, 
and  well  done,  by  persons  who  have  not  received  a 
university  education  and  do  not  regret  it.  So  that 
the  benefits  which  the  country  derives  from  the  uni- 
versities consists  mainly  in  the  refining  and  elevat- 
ing influences  which  they  create,  in  the  taste  for 
study  and  research  which  they  diffuse,  in  the  social 
and  political  ideals  which  they  frame  and  hold  up 
for  admiration,  in  the  confidence  in  the  power  of 
knowledge  which  they  indirectly  spread  among 
the  people,  and  in  the  small  though  steady  con- 
tributions they  make  to  that  reverence  for  "  things 
not  seen  "  in  which  the  soul  of  the  state  may  be 


170  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

said  to  lie,  and  without  which  it  is  nothing  better 
than  a  factory  or  an  insurance  company. 

There  is  nothing  novel  about  the  considerations 
we  are  here  urging.  The  problem  over  which  uni- 
versity reformers  have  been  laboring  in  every 
country  during  the  past  forty  years  has  been,  how 
to  rid  the  universities,  properly  so  called,  of  the 
care  of  the  feeble,  inefficient,  and  poorly  prepared 
students,  and  reserve  their  teaching  for  the  better- 
fitted,  older,  and  more  matured ;  or,  in  other  words, 
how,  in  the  interest  both  of  economy  and  culture, 
to  reserve  the  highest  teaching  power  of  the  com- 
munity for  the  most  promising  material.  It  is 
forty  years  since  John  Stuart  Mill  wrote  a  cele- 
brated attack  on  the  English  universities,  then  in 
a  very  low  condition,  in  which  he  laid  it  down 
broadly  that  the  end  above  all  for  which  endowed 
universities  ought  to  exist  was  "to  keep  alive 
philosophy,"  leaving  "the  education  of  common 
minds  for  the  common  business  of  life"  for  the 
most  part  to  private  enterprise.  This  seemed  at 
the  time  exacting  too  much,  and  it  doubtless  seems 
so  still ;  but  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  ever  since 
that  period  universities  of  the  highest  class,  both 
in  Europe  and  in  this  country,  have  been  working 
in  that  direction — striving,  that  is  to  say,  either  to 
sift  the  applicants  for  admission,  by  imposing  in- 
creasingly severe  tests,  and  thus  presenting  to  the 


THE  HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY  171 

professors  only  pupils  of  the  highest  grade  to  work 
upon ;  or,  at  all  events,  if  not  repelling  the  ill-fit- 
ted, expending  all  their  strength  in  furnishing  the 
highest  educational  advantages  to  the  well-fitted. 
In  the  last  century,  Harvard  and  Yale  were  doing 
just  the  kind  of  work  that  the  high  schools  now 
do — that  is,  taking  young  lads  and  teaching  them 
the  elements  of  literature.  At  the  present  day  they 
are  throwing  this  work  as  far  as  possible  on  the 
primary  schools,  and  reserving  their  professors  and 
libraries  and  apparatus,  as  far  as  the  state  of  the 
country  and  the  conditions  of  their  organization 
will  permit,  for  those  older  and  more  advanced 
students  who  bring  to  the  work  of  learning  both 
real  ardor  and  real  preparation.  A  boy  has  to 
know  more  to  get  into  either  of  them  to-day  than 
his  grandfather  knew  when  he  graduated.  Never- 
theless, with  all  the  efforts  they  can  make  after 
this  true  economy  of  power  and  resources,  there  is 
in  both  of  them  a  large  amount  of  waste  of  labor. 
There  are  men  in  both  of  them,  and  in  various 
other  colleges,  much  of  whose  work  is  almost  as 
much  a  misuse  of  energy  and  time  as  if  they  were 
employed  so  many  hours  a  day  in  carrying  hods  of 
mortar,  simply  because  they  are  doing  what  the 
masters  of  primary  schools  ought  to  do,  and  what 
no  man  at  a  university  ought  to  be  asked  to  do. 
It  is  a  kind  of  work,  too,  which,  if  it  have  to  be 


172  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

done  in  colleges  at  all,  is  already  abundantly  pro- 
vided for  by  endowment.  No  Maryland  youth 
who  desires  to  learn  a  little  mathematics,  get  a 
smattering  of  classics,  and  some  faint  notions  of 
natural  science,  or  even  to  support  himself  by  man- 
ual labor  while  doing  this,  will  suffer  if  the  Hop- 
kins endowment  is  used  for  higher  work.  The 
country  swarms  already  with  institutions  which 
meet  his  needs,  and  in  which  be  can  graduate  with 
ease  to  himself  and  credit  to  his  State.  The 
trustees  of  this  one  will  do  him  and  the  State  and 
the  whole  country  most  service,  therefore,  by  pro- 
viding a  place  to  which,  after  he  has  got  hold  of 
the  rudiments  at  some  other  college,  he  can  come, 
if  he  has  the  right  stuff  in  him,  and  pursue  to  the 
end  the  studies  for  which  all  universities  should 
really  be  reserved. 


THE  SOUTH  AFTER  THE  WAR 


September  8,  1877. 

HAVING  just  returned  from  a  few  weeks'  stay  in 
Virginia  it  has  occurred  to  me  as  probable  that 
your  readers  would  be  interested  in  hearing  how 
such  changes  in  Southern  manners  and  tone  of 
thought  and  economical  outlook  as  could  be  noted 
in  a  brief  visit  strike  one  who  had  travelled  in 
that  region  before  the  war  had  revolutionized  it. 
It  is  now  twenty  years  since  I  spent  a  winter 
traversing  the  Cotton  States  on  horseback,  sleep- 
ing at  the  house  which  happened  to  be  near- 
est when  the  night  caught  me.  Buchanan  had 
just  been  elected ;  the  friends  of  slavery,  though 
anxious,  were  exultant  and  defiant,  and  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  separate  political  future  had  begun  to 
take  definite  shape  in  the  public  mind,  at  least  in 
the  Gulf  States.  I  am  unable  to  compare  the 
economical  condition  of  that  part  of  the  country 
at  that  time  with  its  condition  to-day,  because 


174  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

both  slavery  and  agriculture  in  Virginia  differed 
then  in  many  important  respects  from  slavery  and 
agriculture  farther  south.  But  the  habits  and 
modes  of  thought  and  feeling  bred  by  slavery 
were  essentially  the  same  all  over  the  South ;  and 
I  do  not  think  that  I  shall  go  far  astray  in  assum- 
ing that  the  changes  in  these  which  I  have  no- 
ticed in  Virginia  would  be  found  to-day  in  all  the 
other  States. 

The  first  which  struck  me,  and  it  was  a  most 
agreeable  one,  was  what  I  may  call  the  emanci- 
pation which  conversation  and  social  intercourse 
with  Northerners  had  undergone.  In  1857  the 
tone  of  nearly  everybody  with  whom  I  came  in 
contact,  however  veiled  by  politeness,  was  in 
some  degree  irritable  and  defiant.  My  host  and 
I  were  never  long  before  the  evening  fire  with- 
out my  finding  that  he  was  impatient  to  talk 
about  slavery,  that  he  suspected  me  of  disliking 
it,  and  yet  that  he  wished  to  have  me  understand 
that  he  did  not  care,  and  that  nobody  at  the  South 
cared  two  cents  what  I  thought  about  it,  and  that  it 
was  a  little  impertinent  in  me,  who  knew  so  little  of 
the  negro,  to  have  any  opinion  about  it  at  all.  I 
was  obliged,  too,  to  confess  inwardly  that  there  was 
a  good  deal  of  justification  for  his  bad  temper. 
There  was  I,  a  curious  stranger,  roving  through 
his  country  and  eating  at  his  board,  and  all  the 


THE  SOUTH  AFTER   THE   WAR  175 

while  secretly  or  openly  criticising  or  condemn- 
ing his  relations  with  his  laborers  and  servants, 
and,  in  fact,  the  whole  scheme  of  his  domestic 
life.  I  was  not  a  pleasant  companion,  and  noth- 
ing could  make  me  one,  and  no  matter  on  what 
themes  our  talk  ran,  it  was  colored  by  our  opin- 
ions on  the  institution.  He  looked  at  nearly 
everything  in  politics  and  society  from  what 
might  be  called  the  slaveholder's  point  of  view,  and 
suspected  me,  on  the  other  hand,  of  disguising 
reprobation  of  the  South  and  its  institutions  in 
any  praise  of  the  North  or  of  France  or  England 
which  I  might  utter.  So  that  there  was  a  certain 
acridity  and  a  sense  of  strong  and  deep  limitations 
and  reserves  in  our  discussions,  somewhat  like 
those  which  are  felt  in  the  talk  of  a  pious  evangel- 
ical Protestant  with  a  pious  Catholic. 

In  Virginia  of  to-day  I  was  conscious  of  a  curi- 
ous change  in  the  atmosphere,  as  if  the  windows 
of  a  close  room  had  been  suddenly  opened.  I 
found  that  I  was  in  a  country  where  all  things 
were  debatable,  and  where  I  had  not  to  be  on  the 
lookout  for  susceptibilities.  The  negro,  too,  about 
whom  I  used  to  have  to  be  so  careful,  with  whom 
I  used  to  make  it  a  point  of  honor  not  to  talk  pri- 
vately or  apart  from  his  master  when  I  was  stay- 
ing on  a  plantation,  was  wandering  about  loose, 
as  it  were,  and  nobody  seemed  to  care  anything 


176  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

about  him  any  more  than  about  any  poor  man.  I 
found  every  Southerner  I  spoke  to  as  ready  to  dis- 
cuss him  as  to  discuss  sheep  or  oxen,  to  let  you 
have  your  own  views  about  him  just  as  you  had 
them  about  sheep  or  oxen.  Moreover,  I  found  in- 
stead of  the  stereotyped  orthodox  view  of  his  place 
and  capacity  which  prevailed  in  1857,  a  great  va- 
riety of  opinions  about  him,  mostly  depreciatory, 
it  is  true,  but  still  varying  in  degree  as  well  as  in 
kind.  It  is  difficult  to  give  anyone  who  has 
never  had  any  experience  of  the  old  slave  society 
an  idea  of  the  difference  this  makes  in  a  stranger's 
position  at  the  South.  In  short,  as  one  South- 
erner expressed  it  to  me  on  my  mentioning  the 
change,  "  Yes,  sir,  we  have  been  brought  into  in- 
tellectual and  moral  relations  with  the  rest  of  the 
civilized  world."  All  subjects  are  now  open  at 
the  South  in  conversation. 

Is  this  true  ?  it  will  probably  be  asked,  with  re- 
gard to  the  late  war.  Can  you  talk  freely  about 
that  ?  Not  exactly ;  but  then  the  limitations  on 
your  discourse  on  this  point  are  not  peculiar  to 
the  South ;  they  are  such  as  would  be  put  upon 
the  discourse  of  two  parties  to  a  bloody  contest 
in  any  civilized  country  among  well-bred  men  or 
women.  The  events  of  the  war  you  can  discuss 
freely,  but  you  are  hardly  at  liberty  to  denounce 
Southern  soldiers  or  officers,  or  accuse  them,  of 


THE  SOUTH  AFTER   THE   WAR  177 

"  rebellion,"  or  to  assume  that  they  fought  for  base 
or  wicked  motives.  Moreover,  in  a  certain  sense, 
all  Southerners  are  still  "unrepentant  rebels." 
Doubtless,  in  view  of  the  result,  they  will  acknowl- 
edge that  the  war  was  a  gigantic  mistake ;  but  I 
found  that  if  I  sought  for  an  admission  that,  if  it 
was  all  to  do  over  again,  they  would  not  fight,  I 
was  touching  on  a  very  tender  point,  and  I  was 
gently  but  firmly  repelled.  The  reason  is  plain 
enough.  In  confessing  this,  they  would,  they 
think,  be  confessing  that  their  sons  and  brothers 
and  fathers  had  perished  miserably  in  a  causeless 
struggle  on  which  they  ought  never  to  have  en- 
tered, and  this,  of  course,  would  look  like  a  slur  on 
their  memory,  and  their  memory  is  still,  after  the 
lapse  of  twelve  years,  very  sacred  and  very  dear. 
I  doubt  if  many  people  at  the  North  have  an  ade- 
quate notion  of  the  intensity  of  the  emotions  with 
which  Southerners  look  back  on  the  war ;  and  I 
mean  tender  and  not  revengeful  or  malignant  emo- 
tions. The  losses  of  the  battle-field  were  deeply 
felt  at  the  North — in  many  households  down  to 
the  very  roots  of  life ;  but  on  the  whole  they  fell 
on  a  large  and  prosperous  population,  on  a  com- 
munity which  in  the  very  thick  of  the  fray  seemed 
to  be  rolling  up  wealth,  which  revelled  as  it  fought, 
and  came  out  of  the  battle  triumphant,  exultant, 

and  powerful.     At  the  South  they  swept  through  a 
12 


178  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

scanty  population  with  the  most  searching  de- 
structiveness,  and  when  all  was  over  they  had  to  be 
wept  over  in  ruined  homes  and  in  the  midst  of  a 
society  which  was  wrecked  from  top  to  bottom, 
and  in  which  all  relatives  and  friends  had  sunk 
together  to  common  perdition.  There  has  been 
no  other  such  cataclysm  in  history.  Great  states 
have  been  conquered  before  now,  but  conquest  did 
not  mean  a  sudden  and  desolating  social  revolu- 
tion ;  so  that  to  a  Southerner  the  loss  of  relatives 
on  the  battle-field  or  in  the  hospital  is  associated 
with  the  loss  of  everything  else.  A  gentleman 
told  me  of  his  going,  at  the  close  of  the  war,  into 
a  little  church  in  South  Carolina  on  Sunday, 
and  finding  it  filled  with  women,  who  were  all 
in  black,  and  who  cried  during  the  singing.  It 
reminded  one  of  the  scene  in  the  cathedral  at 
Leyden,  when  the  people  got  together  to  chant  a 
Te  Deum  on  hearing  that  the  besieging  army 
was  gone ;  but,  the  music  suddenly  dying  out,  the 
air  was  filled  with  the  sounds  of  sobbing.  The 
Leydeners,  however,  were  weak  and  half-starved 
people,  weeping  over  a  great  deliverance;  these 
South  Carolinians  were  weeping  before  endless 
bereavement  and  hopeless  poverty.  I  doubt 
much  if  any  community  in  the  modern  world  was 
ever  so  ruthlessly  brought  face  to  face  with  what 
is  sternest  and  hardest  in  human  life ;  and  those 


THE  SOUTH  AFTER  THE  WAR  179 

of  them  who  have  looked  at  it  without  flinching 
have  something  which  any  of  us  may  envy  them. 

But  then  I  think  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  sup- 
pose that  Southerners  came  out  of  the  war  simply 
sorrowful.  At  the  close,  and  for  some  time  af- 
terward, they  undoubtedly  felt  fiercely  and  bitter- 
ly, and  hated  while  they  wept ;  and  this  was  the 
primal  difficulty  of  reconstruction.  Frequently  in 
conversation  I  heard  some  violent  speech  or  act 
occurring  soon  after  the  war  mentioned  with  the 
parenthetical  explanation,  "  You  know,  I  felt  very 
bitterly  at  that  time."  But,  then,  I  have  always 
heard  it  from  persons  who  are  to-day  good-tem- 
pered, conciliatory,  and  hopeful,  and  desirous  of 
cultivating  good  relations  with  Northerners  ;  from 
which  the  inference,  which  so  many  Northern 
politicians  find  it  so  hard  to  swallow,  is  easy — viz., 
that  time  produces  on  Southerners  its  usual  effects. 
What  Mr.  Boutwell  and  Mr.  Elaine  would  have  us 
believe  is  that  Southerners  are  a  peculiar  breed  of 
men,  on  whom  time  produces  no  effect  whatever, 
and  who  feel  about  things  that  happened  twenty 
years  ago  just  as  they  feel  about  things  which 
happened  a  month  ago. 

The  fact  is,  however,  that  they  are  in  this  re- 
spect like  the  rest  of  the  human  race.  Time  has 
done  for  their  hearts  and  heads  what  it  has  done 
for  the  old  Virginia  battle-fields.  There  was  not 


180  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

in  1865  a  fence  standing  between  the  Potomac  and 
Gordonsville,  and  but  few,  if  any,  undamaged 
houses.  When  I  passed  Manassas  Junction  the 
other  day  there  was  a  hospitable-looking  tavern 
and  several  houses  at  the  station  ;  the  flowers  were 
blooming  in  the  yard,  and  crowds  of  young  men 
and  women  in  their  Sunday  clothes  were  gathered 
from  the  country  around  to  see  a  base-ball  match, 
and  a  well-tilled  and  well-fenced  and  smiling  farming 
country  stretched  before  my  eyes  in  every  direction. 
The  only  trace  of  the  old  fights  was  a  rude  grave- 
yard filled,  as  a  large  sign  informed  us,  with  "  the 
Confederate  dead."  All  the  rest  of  the  way  down 
to  the  springs  the  road  ran  through  farms  which 
looked  as  prosperous  and  peaceful  as  if  the  tide  of 
war  had  not  rolled  over  them  inside  a  hundred 
years,  and  it  is  impossible  to  talk  with  the  farmers 
ten  minutes  without  seeing  how  thoroughly  human 
and  Anglo-Saxon  they  are.  With  them  the  war  is 
history — tender,  touching,  and  heroic  history  if  you 
will,  but  having  no  sort  of  connection  with  the 
practical  life  of  to-day.  Some  of  us  at  the  North 
think  their  minds  are  occupied  with  schemes  for 
the  assassination  and  spoliation  of  negroes,  and 
for  a  "  new  rebellion."  Their  minds  are  really 
occupied  with  making  money,  and  the  farms  show 
it,  and  their  designs  on  the  negro  are  confined  to 
getting  him  to  work  for  low  wages.  His  wages 


THE  SOUTH  AFTER  THE  WAR        181 

are  low — forty  cents  a  day  and  rations,  which  cost 
ten  cents — but  lie  is  content  with  it.  I  saw  negroes 
seeking  employment  at  this  rate,  and  glad  to  get  it ; 
and  in  the  making  of  the  bargain  nothing  could  be 
more  commercial,  apparently,  than  the  relations  of 
the  parties.  They  were  evidently  laborer  and  em- 
ployer to  each  other,  and  nothing  more. 

The  state  of  things  on  two  farms  which  I  visited 
may  serve  as  illustrations  of  the  process  of  regen- 
eration which  is  going  on  all  over  Virginia.  They 
are  two  hundred  miles  apart.  On  one  of  two  thou- 
sand acres  there  were,  before  the  war,  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  slaves  of  all  ages.  The  owner, 
at  emancipation,  put  them  in  wagons  and  depos- 
ited them  in  Ohio.  His  successor  now  works  the 
plantation  with  twelve  hired  men,  who  see  to  his 
cattle,  of  which  he  raises  and  feeds  large  herds. 
His  cultivation  is  carried  on  on  shares  by  white  ten- 
ants. He  has  an  overseer,  makes  a  snug  income, 
and  spends  a  good  part  of  his  winters  in  Balti- 
more and  New  York.  He  laughs  when  you  ask  him 
if  he  regrets  slavery.  Nothing  would  induce  him 
to  take  care  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  men,  women, 
and  children,  furnishing  perhaps  thirty  able-bodied 
men,  littering  the  house  with  a  swarin  of  lazy  ser- 
vants, and  making  heavy  drafts  on  the  meat-house 
and  corn-crib,  and  running  up  doctor's  bills. 

The  other  was  owned  at  the  close  of  the  war  by  a 


182  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

regular  "Virginia gentleman,"  with  the  usual  swarm 
of  negroes,  and  who  was  in  debt.  He  sold  it  to 
an  enterprising  young  farmer  from  another  county, 
paid  his  debts,  and  retired  to  a  small  place,  where, 
with  two  or  three  hired  men,  he  makes  a  living. 
The  young  farmer,  instead  of  seventy-five  slaves, 
works  it  with  twelve  hands  in  the  busy  season  and 
three  in  winter,  is  up  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing superintending  them  himself,  raises  all  raisable 
crops,  and  is  as  intent  on  the  markets  and  the  ex- 
periments made  by  his  neighbors  as  if  he  lived  in 
Illinois  or  the  Carse  of  Gowrie.  He  was  led  by 
Colonel  Waring's  book  to  try  tile-draining,  and 
made  the  tiles  for  the  purpose  on  his  own  land.  He 
was  so  successful  that  he  now  manufactures  and 
soils  tiles  extensively  to  others.  It  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  meet  at  the  North  or  in  England  two  men 
with  their  faces  turned  away  from  the  old  times 
more  completely  than  these,  more  averse  from 
the  old  plantation  ways ;  and,  as  far  as  I  could 
learn  or  hear,  they  are  fair  specimens  of  the  kind 
of  men  who  are  taking  possession  of  the  Old  Do- 
minion. Their  neighbors  consist  of  three  classes  : 
men  who  had  by  extraordinary  exertions  saved 
some  or  all  of  their  land  after  the  war,  and  had  by 
borrowing  or  economizing  managed  to  stock  it, 
and  are  now  prospering,  by  dint  of  close  manage- 
ment and  constant  attention,  on  the  Northern  plan ; 


THE  SOUTH  AFTER   THE   WAR  183 

young  and  enterprising  men  who  had  bought  at 
low  rates  from  original  proprietors  whom  the  war 
left  hopelessly  involved,  and  too  old  or  incapable 
to  recover ;  and  a  sprinkling  of  Northern  and  Eng- 
lish immigrants. 


n 


THE  part  played  by  the  Virginia  springs  in  the 
political  and  social  life  of  "the  States  lately  in 
rebellion,"  is  to  a  traveller  most  interesting.  The 
attraction  of  these  springs  to  Southerners  has  been 
in  times  past,  and  is  still,  largely  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  South  has,  properly  speaking,  no  other 
watering-places.  Seaside  resorts  there  are  none 
worth  mention,  from  Norfolk  down  to  Mexico,  and 
there  are  but  few  points  of  the  long,  level,  dull, 
and  sandy  coast-line  which  are  not  more  or  less 
unhealthy.  Suspicion  on  this  point  even  hangs 
around  the  places  in  Florida  now  frequented  by 
Northerners  for  tile  sake  of  the  mild  winter  tem- 
perature. But  even  if  the  sea-coast  were  healthy, 
it  is  in  summer  too  hot  to  be  attractive,  and  offers 
no  relief  to  persons  whose  livers  and  kidneys  have 
got  out  of  order  in  the  lowlands.  These  naturally 
seek  the  hills  for  coolness,  and  they  go  to  the  sul- 
phur springs  of  Virginia  because  the  sulphur 


184  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

waters  are  very  powerful  and  efficacious  in  their 
effects  on  people  afflicted  with  what  the  doctors 
call  "hepatic  troubles."  But  then  they  never 
would  or  could  have  gone  from  the  Southern  sea- 
board to  places  so  far  off  if  it  had  not  been  for 
the  inestimable  negro.  The  extent  to  which  he 
contributed  to  the  rapid  pushing  out  of  the  scanty 
white  population  of  the  slave  States  to  the  Missis- 
sippi has  never,  I  think,  received  due  attention. 
He  robbed  pioneering,  indeed,  at  the  South  of 
most  of  the  hardship  with  which  it  is  associated 
in  the  Northern  mind  —  I  was  going  to  say  dis- 
comfort as  well  as  hardship,  but  this  would  be 
going  too  far.  To  the  Southern  planter,  however, 
who  could  go  West  with  a  party  of  stalwart  ne- 
groes to  do  the  clearing,  building,  ploughing,  and 
cooking  and  washing,  the  wilderness  had  but  few 
of  the  terrors  it  presented  to  the  Northern  fron- 
tiersman. He  was  speedily  provided  with  a  very 
tolerable  home;  not  certainly  the  kind  of  home 
which  the  taste  of  a  man  as  well  off  at  the  North 
would  be  satisfied  with,  but  a  vastly  better  one 
than  any  new  settler  in  the  Northwestern  States 
ever  had.  The  springs  in  the  Virginia  mountains 
became  popular  a  century  ago,  and  were  greatly 
resorted  to  in  much  the  same  way.  They  were 
remote  and  in  the  woods,  but,  owing  to  slavery, 
they  swarmed  from  the  very  first  with  servants 


THE  SOUTH  AFTER   THE    WAR  185 

who  could  not  "  give  notice  "  if  they  did  not  like 
the  place,  or  felt  lonesome. 

The  first  accommodation  at  the  springs  con- 
sisted of  a  circle  of  log-cabins  with  a  diniug-hall 
and  ball-room  in  the  centre,  and  this  constitutes 
the  fundamental  plan  of  a  spring  to  this  day. 
There  is  now  always  a  hotel  in  which  a  consider- 
able number  of  the  visitors  both  sleep  and  eat, 
but  the  bulk  of  them,  or  a  very  large  proportion 
of  them,  still  live  in  the  long  rows  of  one-storied 
wooden  huts,  with  galleries  running  along  in  front 
of  the  doors,  which  are  dignified  with  the  name 
of  "  cottages,"  but  are  in  reality  simply  the  log- 
cabin  in  the  next  stage  of  evolution ;  and  the 
hotel  has  taken  the  place  of  the  original  dining- 
and  ball-rooms  to  which  all  resorted.  In  looking 
at  the  cottages,  and  thinking  of  the  log-cabins 
which  preceded  them,  and  seeing  what  rude  places 
they  are,  one  wonders  a  little  how  people  could 
ever  have  been,  or  can  now  be,  induced  to  leave 
comfortable  homes  for  the  purpose  of  spending 
long  summers  in  them.  But  this  brings  up  one 
of  the  marked  characteristics  of  Southern  life, 
namely,  the  extent  to  which  nearly  all  Southern 
men  and  women  were  led  in  the  slavery  days  to 
associate  comfort  not  with  the  trimness  and  or- 
der of  Northern  or  English  homes,  but  with  an 
abundance  of  service.  Well-to-do  Northerners 


186  REFLECTIONS  AND   UOJfJIENTS 

used  to  be  surprised,  iu  fact,  at  the  amount  of 
what  they  would  consider  discomfort  in  the  way 
of  rude  or  unfinished  surroundings,  hard  beds, 
poor  fare,  want  of  order  of  all  sorts,  which  even 
Southerners  in  easy  circumstances  were  willing  to 
put  up  with ;  but  the  explanation  lay  in  the  fact 
that  Southerners  placed  their  luxury  in  having 
plenty  of  servants  at  command.  All  the  ladies 
had  maids  and  the  men  "  body  servants  "  wherever 
they  went,  and  this  saved  them,  even  on  the  frontier, 
from  a  great  deal  of  drudgery  and  inconvenience. 
Even  a  log-cabin  is  not  a  bad  place  to  lodge  in  if 
you  have  a  valet  (who  cannot  leave  you)  to  dress 
you,  and  brush  your  boots  and  your  clothes,  and 
light  your  fire,  and  bring  you  ice-water  and  juleps 
and  cocktails,  and  anything  else  you  happen  to 
think  of,  who  sleeps  comfortably  in  a  blanket 
across  your  door.  In  fact,  without  this  the  Vir- 
ginia springs  could  never  have  become  a  popu- 
lar resort  until  railroads  were  opened.  People 
used  to  take  twenty  days  in  reaching  them  from 
the  coast  —  some  in  their  own  carnages  with 
four  horses,  and  a  wagon  for  the  baggage  and 
"  darkies,"  and  some  in  stages,  sleeping  in  taverns 
on  the  roadside ;  but  nothing  could  have  made 
this  practicable  or  tolerable  but  the  baud  of  ne- 
groes by  whom  they  were  always  accompanied. 
This,  too,  enabled  them  to  make  their  plans  with 


THE  SOUTH  AFTER   THE  WAR  187 

certainty  for  staying  at  the  springs  all  summer, 
which  they  could  not  have  done  had  they  been 
unable  to  count  on  their  servants.  One  gentle- 
man, a  Charlestonian,  telling  me  his  reminiscences 
of  these  long  journeys  to  the  springs  taken  with 
his  parents  in  their  own  carriage,  when  he  was  a 
boy,  said  his  mother  was  very  delicate  and  her 
health  required  it.  This  at  the  North  would  have 
been  a  joke,  as  it  would  have  killed  a  delicate 
woman  to  go  into  the  woods  with  hired  "  help  "  or 
without  any  service  at  all. 

Partly  owing  to  the  efficacy  of  the  waters  and 
partly  to  the  absence  of  other  Southern  watering- 
places,  the  springs  became  very  early  the  resort 
of  every  Southerner  who  could  afford  to  leave 
home  in  the  summer,  and  they  grew  in  favor  owing 
to  the  peculiarities  of  Southern  society  and  the 
delicate  state  of  Southern  relations  with  the  North. 
In  the  first  place,  at  the  South  people  know  each 
other,  and  know  about  each  other,  in  a  way  of 
which  the  inhabitants  of  a  denser  and  busier  com- 
munity have  little  idea.  The  number  of  persons 
in  Illinois,  or  Ohio,  or  Michigan  that  a  New 
Yorker  knows  anything  about,  or  cares  to  see  for 
social  purposes,  is  exceedingly  small.  At  the 
South  everybody  with  the  means  to  travel  has 
relatives  or  friends  or  acquaintances  of  longer  or 
shorter  standing,  in  nearly  every  Southern  State, 


188  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

whom  it  is  agreeable  for  him  to  meet,  and  he 
knows  that  they  will  probably,  at  some  part  of  the 
season  or  other,  appear  at  the  springs.  They  will 
not  go  North  because  the  North  is  far  away,  is,  in 
a  certain  sense,  a  strange  community,  and  before 
the  war  a  hostile  or  critical  one.  Then,  too,  the 
South  abounded  or  abounds  with  local  notables  to 
a  degree  of  which  we  have  no  idea  at  the  North, 
with  persons  of  a  certain  weight  and  consequence 
in  their  own  State  or  county,  and  to  whom  this 
weight  and  consequence  are  so  agreeable  and  im- 
portant that  they  cannot  bear  to  part  with  them 
when  they  go  on  a  journey.  They  could  always 
carry  them  with  them  to  the  springs.  There  every- 
body was  sure  to  know  their  standing,  while  if 
they  had  gone  up  North  they  would  be  lost  in  the 
crowd  and  be  nobodies,  and,  before  tho  war,  have 
been  deprived  of  the  services  of  their  "  body  ser- 
vants" or  labored  under  constant  anxiety  about 
their  security. 

The  springs,  too,  became,  very  early,  and  are 
now,  a  great  marrying  -  place.  The  "  desirable 
young  men,  all  riding  on  horses,"  as  the  prophet 
called  the  Assyrian  swells,  go  there  in  search  of 
wives,  and  are  pretty  sure  to  find  there  all  the 
marriageable  young  women  of  the  South  who  can 
be  said  in  any  sense  to  be  in  society.  Widows 
abound  at  the  springs  just  now  —  by  which  I 


189 

mean  widows  who  would  not  object  to  trying  the 
chances  of  matrimony  again.  I  have  been  told 
that,  since  the  war,  it  is  not  uncommon  for  families 
whose  means  are  small  to  make  up  a  purse  to  send 
one  attractive  youth  or  maid  or  forlorn  widow  to 
the  springs,  in  the  hope  that  during  the  season 
they  may  find  the  unknown  soul  which  is  to  com- 
plete their  destiny,  somewhat  like  the  "culture" 
donations  made  to  promising  people  at  the  North 
to  enable  them  to  visit  Europe.  Then,  too,  to  that 
very  large  proportion  of  the  population  at  the 
South  who  lead  during  the  rest  of  the  year  abso- 
lutely solitary  lives  on  plantations,  the  visit  to  the 
springs  gives  the  only  society  of  any  kind  they 
ever  see,  and  the  one  chance  of  showing  their 
clothes  and  seeing  what  the  other  women  wear. 
In  short,  I  do  not  believe  that  any  one  place  of 
summer  resort  serves  so  many  purposes  to  any 
community  as  the  Virginia  springs  serve  to  that 
of  the  South,  and  by  the  springs  I  mean  that  circle 
of  mineral  waters  of  various  kinds  which  lie  round 
the  White  Sulphur,  and  to  which  the  White  Sul- 
phur acts  as  a  kind  of  distributing  reservoir  of 
visitors. 

As  regards  the  opinions  of  the  very  representa- 
tive company  at  the  springs  on  the  subject  of  sla- 
very, it  seemed,  as  well  as  I  could  get  at  it,  to  be 
that  about  one  per  cent,  of  the  white  people  re- 


190  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

gretted  the  emancipation  ;  but  this  was  composed 
almost  entirely  of  old  persons,  who  were  unable  to 
accommodate  themselves  to  a  new  order  of  things, 
and  to  whom  it  meant  the  loss  of  personal  attend- 
ance—  perhaps  the  greatest  inconvenience  which 
elderly  persons  who  have  been  used  to  valets  and 
maids  can  undergo.  Many  such  persons  at  the 
South  were  really  killed  by  the  social  changes  pro- 
duced by  the  war,  as  truly  as  if  they  had  been 
struck  on  the  battle-field ;  the  bewildered  resigna- 
tion of  the  survivors  is  sometimes  touching  to  wit- 
ness, and  the  calamity  was  generally  embittered 
by  the  wholesale  flight  of  the  most  trusted  house- 
hold servants,  who  it  was  supposed  would  have 
despised  freedom  even  if  offered  in  a  gold  box  by 
Phillips,  Garrison,  and  Greeley  in  person.  Telling 
one  old  gentleman  who  was  mourning  over  the 
change  that  the  young  men  to  whom  I  spoke  did 
not  agree  with  him,  but  thought  it  an  excellent 
thing,  he  replied  "that  those  fellows  never  had 
known  what  domestic  comfort  was  " — meaning  that 
their  experience  did  not  run  back  beyond  1805. 

The  traditions  of  the  old  system  are,  however, 
unquestionably  a  better  basis  for  good  hotel-keep- 
ing than  anything  we  have  at  the  North.  The 
first  condition  of  excellence  in  all  places  of  enter- 
tainment for  man  and  beast  is  exactingness  on  the 
part  of  the  public.  To  be  well  cared  for  you  must 


THE  SOUTH  AFTER   THE    WAR  191 

expect  it  and  be  used  to  it,  and  this  condition  the 
Southerners  fulfil  in  a  much  higher  degree  than  we 
do.  They  look  for  more  attention,  and  they  there- 
fore get  it ;  and  the  waiter  world,  partly  from  habit 
and  partly,  no  doubt,  from  race  temperament,  ren- 
der it  with  a  cheerfulness  we  are  not  familiar  with 
here.  But  the  superiority  of  manners  in  all  classes 
is  very  striking.  One  rarely  meets  a  man  on  a 
Virginia  road  who  does  not  raise  or  touch  his  hat, 
and  this  not  in  a  servile  way  either,  but  simply  as 
politeness.  The  bearing  of  the  men  toward  each 
other  generally,  too,  has  the  ineffable  charm,  which 
Northern  manners  are  so  apt  to  want,  of  indicat- 
ing a  recognition  of  the  fact  that  even  if  you  are 
no  better  than  any  other  man,  you  are  different, 
and  that  your  peculiarities  are  respectable,  and 
that  you  are  entitled  to  a  certain  amount  of  defer- 
ence for  your  private  tastes  and  habits.  At  the 
North,  on  the  other  hand,  manners,  even  as  taught 
to  children,  are  apt  to  concede  nothing  except  that 
you  have  an  immortal  soul  and  a  middling  chance 
of  salvation,  and  to  avoid  anything  which  is  likely 
to  lead  you  to  forget  that  you  are  simply  a  human 
male. 


CHEOMO-CIVILIZATION 


THE  last  "  statement,"  it  is  reasonable  to  hope, 
has  been  made  in  the  Beecher-Tilton  case  previ- 
ous to  the  trial  at  law,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  it 
has  left  the  public  mind  in  as  unsettled  a  state  as 
ever  before.  People  do  not  know  what  to  believe, 
but  they  do  not  want  to  hear  any  more  newspaper 
discussion  by  the  principal  actors.  We  are  not 
going  to  attempt  any  analysis  or  summing-up  of 
the  case  at  present.  It  will  be  time  enough  to  do 
that  after  the  dramatis  personce  have  undergone  an 
examination  in  court,  but  we  would  again  warn 
our  readers  against  looking  for  an}'  decisive  result 
from  the  legal  trial.  The  expectations  on  this 
point  which  some  of  the  newspapers  and  a  good 
many  lawyers  are  encouraging  are  in  the  highest 
degree  extravagant.  The  truth  is  that  only  a  very 
small  portion  of  the  stuff  contained  in  the  various 
"  statements  "  can,  under  the  rules  of  evidence,  be 
laid  before  the  jury  —  not,  we  venture  to  assert, 
more  than  would  fill  half  a  newspaper  column  in 
all.  What  will  be  laid  before  the  jury  is,  in  the 


CHR  OHO-  CIVILIZA  TION  193 

main,  "  questions  of  veracity  "  between  three  or 
four  persons  whose  credit  is  already  greatly 
shaken,  or,  in  other  words,  the  very  kind  of  ques- 
tions on  which  juries  are  most  likely  to  disagree, 
even  when  the  jurymen  are  entirely  unprejudiced. 
In  the  present  case  they  are  sure  to  be  prejudiced, 
and  are  sure  to  be  governed,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, in  reaching  their  conclusions  by 
agencies  wholly  foreign  to  the  matter  in  hand, 
and  are  thus  very  likely  to  disagree.  There  are 
very  few  men  whose  opinions  about  Mr.  Beecher's 
guilt  or  innocence  are  not  influenced  by  their  own 
religious  and  political  beliefs,  or  by  their  social 
antecedents  or  surroundings.  A  curious  and 
somewhat  instructive  illustration  of  the  way  in 
which  a  man's  fate  in  such  cases  as  this  may  be 
affected  by  considerations  having  no  sort  of  rela- 
tion to  the  facts,  is  afforded  by  the  attitude  of  the 
Western  press  toward  the  chief  actors  in  the 
present  scandal.  It  may  be  said,  roughly,  that 
while  the  press  east  of  the  Alleghanies  has  in- 
clined in  Beecher's  favor,  the  newspapers  west  of 
them  have  gone  somewhat  savagely  and  persist- 
ently against  him,  and  have  treated  Tilton  as  a 
martyr.  The  cause  of  such  a  divergence  of  views, 
considering  that  both  Tiltou  and  Beecher  are  j| 
Eastern  men,  is  of  course  somewhat  obscure,  but  , 
we  have  no  doubt  that  it  is  due  to  a  vague  feeling 
13 


194 


1 


prevalent  in  the  West  that  Tilton's  cause  is  the 
democratic  one — that  is,  the  cause  of  the  poor, 
friendless  man  against  the  rich  and  successful  one 
— a  feeling  somewhat  like  that  which  in  England 
enlisted  the  working-classes  in  London  on  the  side 
of  the  Tichborne  claimant,  in  defiance  of  all 
reason  and  evidence,  as  a  poor  devil  fighting  a 
hard  battle  with  the  high  and  mighty.  One  of 
the  reporters  of  a  Western  paper  which  has  made 
important  contributions  to  the  literature  of  the 
scandal,  recently  accounted  for  his  support  of  Til- 
ton  by  declaring  that  in  standing  by  him  he  was 
"  fighting  the  battle  of  the  Bohemians  against 
Capital."  Another  Western  paper,  in  analyzing 
the  causes  of  the  position  taken  by  the  leading 
New  York  papers  on  Beecher's  side,  ascribed  it  to 
the  social  relations  of  the  editors  with  him,  be- 
lieving that  they  met  him  frequently  at  dinners 
and  breakfasts,  and  found  him  a  jovial  companion. 
All  this  would  be  laughable  enough  if  it  did  not 
show  the  amount  of  covert  peril  —  peril  against 
which  no  precautions  can  bo  taken  —  to  which 
every  prominent  man's  character  is  exposed.  The 
moment  he  gets  into  a  scrape  of  any  kind  he  finds 
a  host  of  persons  whose  enmity  he  never  sus- 
pected clamoring  to  have  him  thrown  to  the 
beasts  "  on  general  grounds  " — that  is,  in  virtue  of 
certain  tests  adopted  by  themselves,  judged  by 


CHROMO-CIVILIZATION  195 

which,  apart  from  the  facts  of  any  particular  accu- 
sation, a  man  of  his  kind  is  unquestionably  a  bad 
fellow.  The  accusation,  in  short,  furnishes  the  oc- 
casion for  destroying  him,  not  necessarily  the 
reason  for  it. 

In  Europe  there  are  already  abundant  signs  that 
the  scandal  will  be  considered  a  symptomatic  phe- 
nomenon—  that  is,  a  phenomenon  illustrative  of 
the  moral  condition  of  American  society  generally ; 
for  it  must  not  be  overlooked  that,  putting  aside  al- 
together the  question  of  Beecher's  guilt  or  inno- 
cence, the  "  statements "  furnish  sociological  rev- 
elations of  a  most  singular  and  instructive  kind. 
The  witnesses,  in  telling  their  story,  although  their 
minds  are  wholly  occupied  with  the  proof  or  dis- 
proof of  certain  propositions,  describe  ways  of  liv- 
ing, standards  of  ri^ht  and  wrong,  traits  of  man- 
ners, codes  of  propriety,  religious  and  social  ideas, 
which,  taken  together,  form  social  pictures  of  great 
interest  and  value.  Now,  if  these  were  really  pict- 
ures of  American  society  in  general,  as  some 
European  observers  are  disposed  to  conclude,  we 
do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  prospects  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race  on  this  continent  would  be 
somewhat  gloomy.  But  we  believe  we  only  ex- 
press the  sentiment  of  all  parts  of  the  country 
when  we  say  that  the  state  of  things  in  Brooklyn 
revealed  by  the  charges  and  countercharges  has 


196  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

filled  the  best  part  of  the  American  people  with 
nearly  as  much  amazement  as  if  an  unknown  tribe 
worshipping  strange  gods  had  been  suddenly  dis- 
covered on  Brooklyn  Heights.  In  fact,  the  actors 
iu  the  scandal  have  the  air  of  persons  who  are  liv- 
ing, not  more  majorum,  by  rules  with  which  they 
are  familiar,  but  like  half-civilized  people  who 
have  got  hold  of  a  code  which  they  do  not  under- 
stand, and  the  phrases  of  which  they  use  without 
being  able  to  adapt  their  conduct  to  it. 

We  have  not  space  at  our  command  to  illustrate 
this  as  fully  as  we  could  wish,  even  if  the  patience 
of  our  readers  would  permit  of  it,  but  we  can  per- 
haps illustrate  sufficiently  within  a  very  short  com- 
pass. We  have  already  spoken  of  the  Oriental  ex- 
travagance of  the  language  used  in  the  scandal, 
which  might  pass  in  Persia^  or  Central  Arabia, 
where  wild  hyperbole  is  permitted  by  the  genius 
of  the  language,  and  where  people  are  accustomed 
to  it  in  conversation,  understand  it  perfectly,  and 
make  unconscious  allowance  for  it.  Displayed 
here  in  the  United  States,  in  a  mercantile  commu- 
nity, and  in  a  tongue  characterized  by  directness 
and  simplicity,  it  makes  the  actors  almost  entirely 
incomprehensible  to  people  outside  their  own  set, 
as  is  shown  by  the  attempts  made  to  explain  and 
understand  the  letters  in  the  case.  Most  of  the 
critics,  both  the  friendly  and  hostile,  are  compelled 


CHROMO-CIVILIZATION  197 

to  treat  them  as  written  in  a  sort  of  dialect  which 
has  to  be  read  with  the  aid  of  commentary,  glosses, 
and  parallels,  and  accompanied,  like  the  study  of 
Homer  or  the  Beg- Veda,  by  a  careful  examination 
of  the  surroundings  of  the  writers,  the  conditions 
of  their  birth  and  education,  the  usages  of  the  cir- 
cle in  which  they  live,  and  the  social  and  religious 
influences  by  which  they  have  been  moulded,  and 
so  on.  Their  almost  entire  want  of  any  sense  of 
necessary  connection  between  facts  and  written 
statements  has  been  strikingly  revealed  by  Moul- 
ton's  production  of  various  drafts  or  outlines  of 
cards,  reports,  and  letters  which  the  actors  pro- 
posed from  time  to  time  to  get  up  and  publish  for 
the  purpose  of  settling  their  troubles  and  warding 
off  exposure  by  imposing  on  the  public.  No  sav- 
ages could  have  acted  with  a  more  simple-minded 
unconsciousness  of  truth.  Moulton,  according  to 
his  own  story,  helped  Beecher  to  publish  a  lying 
card  ;  got  Tilton  to  procure  from  his  wife  a  ly- 
ing letter;  and  Tilton  concocted  a  lying  report 
for  the  committee,  in  which  he  made  them  express 
the  highest  admiration  for  himself,  his  adulter- 
ous wife,  and  her  paramour.  Here  we  have  a 
bit  of  the  machinery  of  high  civilization — a  com- 
mittee, with  its  investigation  and  report,  used,  or 
attempted  to  be  used,  with  just  the  kind  of  savage 
directness  with  which  a  Bongo  would  use  it,  when 


198  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

once  lie  came  to  understand  it,  and  found  he  could 
make  it  serve  some  end,  and  with  just  as  little  ref- 
erence to  the  moral  aspect  of  the  transaction. 

Take,  again,  Tilton's  account  of  the  motives 
which  governed  him  in  his  treatment  of  his  wife 
and  of  Beecher.  He  is  evidently  aware  that  there 
are  two  codes  regulating  a  man's  conduct  under 
such  circumstances — one  the  Christian  code  and 
the  other  the  conventional  code  of  honor,  or,  as  he 
calls  it,  "  club-house  morality ; "  but  it  soon  be- 
came clear  that  he  had  no  distinct  conception  of 
their  difference.  Having  been  brought  up  under 
the  Christian  code,  and  taught,  doubtless,  to  regard 
the  term  "  gentleman  "  as  a  name  for  a  heartless 
epicurean,  he  started  off  by  forgiving  both  Beecher 
and  his  wife,  or,  as  the  lawyers  say,  condoning 
their  offence ;  and  he  speaks  scornfully  of  the  re- 
ligious ignorance  of  the  committee  in  assuming  in 
their  report  that  there  was  any  offence  for  which  a 
Christian  was  not  bound  to  accept  an  apology  as  a 
sufficient  atonement.  The  club-house  code  would, 
however,  have  prescribed  the  infliction  of  vengeance 
on  Beecher  by  exposing  him.  Accordingly,  Tilton 
mixes  the  two  codes  up  in  the  most  absurd  way. 
Having,  as  a  Christian,  forgiven  Beecher,  he  began, 
thirty  days  after  the  discovery  of  the  offence,  to 
expose  him  as  a  "  gentleman,"  and  kept  forgiving 
and  exposing  him  continuously  through  the  whole 


CHROATO-CtVlLIZATlON  199 

four  years,  the  eclat  of  such  a  relation  to  Beecher 
having  evidently  an  irresistible  temptation  for  him. 
Finally,  when  Dr.  Bacon  called  him  a  "  dog,"  he 
threw  aside  the  Christian  role  altogether  and  began 
assailing  his  enemy  with  truly  heathen  virulence  and 
vigor.  A  more  curious  blending  of  two  conceptions 
of  duty  is  not  often  seen,  and  it  was  doubtless  due 
to  the  fact  that  no  system  of  training  or  culture 
had  made  any  impression  on  the  man  or  gone 
more  than  skin  deep.  His  interview  with  Beecher, 
too,  by  appointment,  at  his  own  house,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  ascertaining  by  a  comparison  of  dates  and 
reference  to  his  wife's  diary  the  probable  paternity 
of  her  youngest  child,  which  he  describes  with  the 
utmost  simplicity,  is,  we  venture  to  say,  an  incident 
absolutely  without  precedent,  and  one  which  may 
safely  be  pronounced  foreign  to  our  civilization. 
Whether  it  really  occurred,  or  Tilton  invented  it, 
it  makes  him  a  problem  in  social  philosophy  of  con- 
siderable interest. 

Moulton's  story,  too,  furnishes  several  puzzles  of 
the  same  kind.  That  an  English-speaking  Protes- 
tant married  couple  in  easy  circumstances  and  of 
fair  education,  and  belonging  to  a  religious  circle, 
should  not  only  be  aware  that  their  pastor  was  a 
libertine  and  should  be  keeping  it  a  secret  for  him, 
but  should  make  his  adulteries  the  subject  of  con- 
versation with  him  in  the  family  circle,  is  hardly 


200  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

capable  of  explanation  by  reference  to  any  known 
and  acknowledged  tendency  of  our  society.  But 
perhaps  the  most  striking  thing  in  Moulton's  role 
is  that  while  he  appears  on  the  scene  as  a  gentle- 
man or  "  man  of  the  world,"  who  does  for  honor's 
sake  what  the  other  actors  do  from  fear  of  God, 
his  whole  course  is  a  kind  of  caricature  of  what  a 
gentleman  under  like  circumstances  would  really 
do.  For  instance,  he  accepts  Beecher's  confi- 
dence, which  may  have  been  unavoidable,  and  be- 
trays it  by  telling  various  people,  from  time  to 
time,  of  the  several  incidents  of  Beecher's  troub- 
le, which  is  something  of  which  a  weak  or  loose- 
tongued  person — vain  of  the  task  in  which  he  was 
engaged,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  i.e.,  of  keeping  the 
peace  between  two  great  men — might  readily  be 
guilty.  But  he  tells  the  public  of  it  in  perfect 
unconsciousness  that  there  was  anything  discred- 
itable in  it,  as  he  does  of  his  participation  in 
the  writing  of  lying  letters  and  cards,  and  his 
passing  money  over  from  the  adulterer  to  pacify 
the  injured  husband.  In  fact,  he  carries,  according 
to  his  own  account,  his  services  to  Beecher  to  a 
point  at  which  it  is  very  difficult  to  distinguish 
them  from  those  of  a  pander,  maintaining  at  the 
same  time  relations  of  the  most  disgusting  con- 
fidence with  Mrs.  Tilton.  Finally,  too,  when  great- 
ly perplexed  as  to  his  course,  he  goes  publicly  and 


CHROMO-CIVILIZATION  201 

with  eclat  for  advice  to  a  lawyer,  with  whom  no 
gentleman,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  could 
maintain  intimate"  personal  relation  or  safely  con- 
sult on  a  question  of  honor.  The  moral  insen- 
sibility shown  in  his  visit  to  General  Butler  is  one 
of  the  strange  parts  of  the  affairs. 

We  have,  of  course,  only  indicated  in  the  brief- 
est way  some  of  the  things  which  may  be  re- 
garded as  symptomatic  of  strange  mental  and 
moral  conditions  in  the  circle  in  which  the  af- 
fair has  occurred.  The  explanation  of  them  in 
any  way  that  would  generally  be  considered 
satisfactory  would  be  a  difficult  task.  The  in- 
fluences which  bring  about  a  certain  state  of 
manners  at  any  given  time  or  place  are  always 
numerous  and  generally  obscure,  but  we  think 
something  of  this  sort  may  be  safely  offered  in 
consideration  of  the,  late  "  goings  on  "  in  Brook- 
lyn. 

In  the  first  place,  the  newspapers  and  other 
cheap  periodicals,  and  the  lyceum  lectures  and 
small  colleges,  have  diffused  through  the  commu- 
nity a  kind  of  smattering  of  all  sorts  of  knowledge, 
a  taste  for  reading  and  for  "  art " — that  is,  a  de- 
sire to  see  and  own  pictures — which,  taken  to- 
gether, pass  with  a  large  body  of  slenderly 
equipped  persons  as  "  culture,"  and  give  them  an 
unprecedented  self-confidence  in  dealing  with  all 


302 


REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 


the  problems  of  life,  and  raise  them  in  their  own 
rninds  to  a  plane  on  which  they  see  nothing  higher, 
greater,  or  better  than  themselves.  Now,  culture, 
in  the  only  correct  and  safe  sense  of  the  term,  is 
the  result  of  a  process  of  discipline,  both  mental 
and  moral.  It  is  not  a  thing  that  can  be  picked 
up,  or  that  can  be  got  by  doing  what  one  pleases. 
It  cannot  be  acquired  by  desultory  reading,  for  in- 
stance, or  travelling  in  Europe.  It  comes  of  the 
protracted  exercise  of  the  faculties  for  given  ends, 
under  restraints  of  some  kind,  whether  imposed 
by  one's  self  or  other  people.  In  fact,  it  might 
not  improperly  be  called  the  art  of  doing  easily 
what  you  don't  like  to  do.  It  is  the  breaking-in 
of  the  powers  to  the  service  of  the  will ;  and  a 
man  who  has  got  it  is  not  simply  a  person  who 
knows  a  good  deal,  for  he  may  know  very  little, 
but  a  man  who  has  obtained  an  accurate  estimate 
of  his  own  capacity,  and  of  that  of  his  fellows  and 
predecessors,  who  is  aware  of  the  nature  and  ex- 
tent of  his  relations  to  the  world  about  him,  and 
who  is  at  the  same  time  capable  of  using  his  pow- 
ers to  the  best  advantage.  In  short,  the  man  of 
culture  is  the  man  who  has  formed  his  ideals 
through  labor  and  self-denial.  To  be  real,  there- 
fore, culture  ought  to  affect  a  man's  whole  char- 
acter and  not  merely  store  his  memory  with  facts. 
Let  us  add,  too,  that  it  may  be  got  in  various 


CHROXO-CIVILIZATION  203 

ways,  through  home  influences  as  well  as  through 
schools  or  colleges  ;  through  living  in  a  highly  or- 
ganized society,  making  imperious  demands  on 
one's  time  and  faculties,  as  well  as  through  the  re- 
straints of  a  severe  course  of  study.  A  good  deal 
of  it  was  obtained  from  the  old  Calviuistic  the- 
ology, against  which,  in  the  days  of  its  predomi- 
nance, the  most  bumptious  youth  hit  his  head  at 
an  early  period  of  his.  career,  and  was  reduced  to 
thoughtfulness  and  self-examination,  and  forced  to 
walk  in  ways  that  were  not  always  to  his  liking. 

If  all  this  be  true,  the  mischievous  effects  of  the 
pseudo-culture  of  which  we  have  spoken  above 
may  be  readily  estimated.  A  society  of  ignoram- 
uses who  know  they  are  ignoramuses  might  lead 
a  tolerably  happy  and  useful  existence,  but  a  soci- 
ety of  ignoramuses  each  of  whom  thinks  he  is  a 
Solon  would  be  an  approach  to  Bedlam  let  loose, 
and  something  analogous  to  this  may  really  be 
seen  to-day  in  some  parts  of  this  country.  A  large 
body  of  persons  has  arisen,  under  the  influence  of 
the  common  schools,  magazines,  newspapers,  and 
the  rapid  acquisition  of  wealth,  who  are  not  only 
engaged  in  enjoying  themselves  after  their  fashion, 
but  who  firmly  believe  that  they  have  reached,  in 
the  matter  of  social,  mental,  and  moral  culture,  all 
that  is  attainable  or  desirable  by  anybody,  and 
who,  therefore,  tackle  all  the  problems  of  the  day 


204  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

— men's,  women's,  and  children's  rights  and  duties, 
marriage,  education,  suffrage,  life,  death,  and  im- 
mortality—with supreme  indifference  to  what  any- 
body else  thinks  or  has  ever  thought,  and  have 
their  own  trumpery  prophets,  prophetesses,  heroes 
and  heroines,  poets,  orators,  scholars  and  philoso- 
phers, whom  they  worship  with  a  kind  of  barbaric 
fervor.  The  result  is  a  kind  of  mental  and  moral 
chaos,  in  which  many  of  the  fundamental  rules  of 
living,  which  have  been  worked  out  painfully  by 
thousands  of  years  of  bitter  human  experience, 
seem  in  imminent  risk  of  disappearing  totally. 

Now,  if  we  said  that  a  specimen  of  this  society 
had  been  unearthed  in  Brooklyn  by  the  recent 
exposures,  we  should,  doubtless  to  many  people, 
seem  to  say  a  very  hard  thing,  and  yet  this,  Avith 
the  allowances  and  reservations  which  have  of 
course  to  be  made  for  all  attempts  to  describe  any- 
thing so  vague  and  fleeting  as  a  social  state,  is 
what  we  do  mean  to  say.  That  Mr.  Beecher's 
preaching,  falling  on  such  a  mass  of  disorder, 
should  not  have  had  a  more  purifying  and  organ- 
izing effect,  is  due,  we  think,  to  the  absence  from 
it  of  anything  in  the  smallest  degree  disciplinary, 
either  in  the  shape  of  systematic  theolog}-,  with  its 
tests  and  standards,  or  of  a  social  code,  Avith  its 
pains  and  penalties.  What  he  has  most  encour- 
aged, if  we  may  judge  by  some  of  the  fruits,  is 


CHROMO-CIVILIZATION  205 

• 

vague  aspiration  and  lachrymose  sensibility.  The 
ability  to  dare  and  do,  the  readiness  to  ask  one's 
due  which  conies  of  readiness  to  render  their  due 
to  others,  the  profound  consciousness  of  the  need 
of  sound  habits  to  brace  and  fortify  morals,  which 
are  the  only  true  foundation  and  support  of  a 
healthy  civilization,  are  things  which  he  either  has 
not  preached  or  which  his  preaching  has  only 
stifled. 


"THE  SHORT-HAIRS"  AND  "THE  SWAL- 
LOW-TAILS " 

THERE  is  a  story  afloat  that  Mr.  John  Morrissey 
made  his  appearance,  one  day  during  the  past 
week,  in  Madison  Square,  in  full  evening  dress, 
including  white  gloves  and  cravat,  and  bearing  a 
French  dictionary  under  his  arm,  and  that,  being 
questioned  by  his  friends  as  to  the  object  of  this 
display,  he  replied  that  he  was  going  to  see  Mayor 
Wickham  and  ask  him  for  an  office  in  the  only 
costume  in  which  such  an  application  would  have 
a  chance  of  success.  In  other  words,  he  was  act- 
ing what  over  in  Brooklyn  would  be  called  "  an 
allegory,"  and  which  was  intended  to  expose  in  a 
severe  and  telling  way  the  Mayor's  gross  partial- 
ity, in  the  use  of  his  patronage,  for  the  well- 
dressed  and  well-educated  members  of  society — a 
partiality  which  Mr.  Morrissey  and  his  party  con- 
sider not  only  unfair  but  ridiculous.  This  demon- 
stration, too,  was  one  of  the  few  indications  which 
have  as  yet  met  the  public  eye  of  a  very  real  divis- 
ion of  the  Democratic  party  in  this  city  into  two 


"SHORT-HAIRS"  AND   "SWALLOW-TAILS"        207 

sets  of  politicians,  known  familiarly  as  "Short- 
Hairs  "  and  "  Swallow-Tails  " — the  former  com- 
prising the  rank  and  file  of  the  voters  and  the  lat- 
ter "the  property-owners  and  substantial  men," 
who  are  endeavoring  to  make  Tammany  an  instru- 
ment of  reform  and  to  manage  the  city  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  taxpayers.  Mayor  Wickham  belongs, 
it  is  said,  to  the  latter  class,  and  has  given,  it 
seems,  in  the  eyes  of  the  former,  some  proofs  of  a 
desire  to  reserve  responsible  offices  for  persons  of 
some  pretensions  to  gentility,  and  exhibited  some 
disfavor  for  the  selections  of  the  "  workers  "  in  the 
various  wards. 

But  we  do  not  undertake  to  describe  with  ac- 
curacy the  origin  or  nature  of  the  split ;  all  we 
know  is  that  the  Short-Hairs  are  disgusted,  and 
that  their  hostility  to  the  Swallow-Tails  is  very 
bitter,  and  that  when  Mr.  Morrissey  proclaimed,  in 
the  manner  we  have  described,  that  a  man  needed 
to  wear  evening  dress  and  to  know  French  in  or- 
der to  get  a  place,  he  gave  feeble  expression  to 
the  rage  of  the  masses.  They  have,  too,  concocted 
an  arrangement  which  embodies  their  idea  of  a 
well-administered  government,  and  which  consists 
in  compelling  the  departments  to  spend  in  wages 
in  each  district  at  least  $1.50  for  each  Democratic 
vote  cast,  and  to  apportion  the  appropriations 
with  strict  reference  to  this  rule,  the  money,  of 


208  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

course,  to  go  to  the  nominees  of  Democratic  poli- 
ticians. The  plan  departs  from  that  of  the  French 
national  workshops  in  that  it  discriminates  be- 
tween laborers,  but  in  other  respects  it  has  all 
the  characteristics  of  well-developed  Communism. 
The  way  to  meet  it,  according  to  our  venerable 
contemporary,  the  Evening  Post,  is  to  have  the 
taxpayers  point  out  to  the  voters  who  are  to  re- 
ceive the  money  that  they  (the  taxpayers)  cannot 
well  spare  it,  that  they  need  it  for  their  own  use, 
and  that  this  mode  of  administering  corporate 
funds  is  condemned  by  all  the  leading  writers  on 
government.  The  Swallow-Tails  know  so  well, 
however,  with  what  howls  of  mingled  mirth  and 
indignation  the  Short-Hairs  would  receive  such 
suggestions  that  they  never  make  them,  but  con- 
tent themselves  with  confining  the  distribution  of 
the  money  to  the  members  of  their  own  division 
quietly  and  unostentatiously,  as  far  as  lies  in 
their  power,  which,  we  candidly  confess,  we  do 
not  think  is  very  far. 

It  would  be  doing  the  Short-Hairs  injustice, 
however,  if  we  allowed  the  reader  to  remain  under 
the  impression  that  the  unwillingness  to  have  the 
Swallow-Tails  monopolize  or  even  have  a  share  of 
the  office  was  peculiar  to  them,  or  that  John  Mor- 
rissey's  protest  would  be  unintelligible  anywhere 
out  of  New  York.  On  the  contrary,  when  he 


"SHORT-HAIRS"  AND  "SWALLOW-TAILS"       209 

started  out  with  his  French  dictionary  he  was  giv- 
ing expression  to  a  feeling  which  is  to  be  found 
in  greater  or  less  intensity  in  every  State  in  the 
Union.  The  great  division  of  politicians  into 
Short-Hairs  and  Swallow-Tails  is  not  confined  to 
this  city.  It  is  found  in  every  city  in  the  country 
in  wrhich  there  is  much  diversity  of  condition 
among  the  inhabitants.  Nor  did  Morrissey  mean 
simply  to  protest  against  training  as  a  qualifica- 
tion for  the  work  of  administration,  as  the  Trib- 
une assumed  in  a  sharp  and  incisive  lecture 
which  it  read  him  the  other  day.  We  doubt  if 
any  pugilist  in  his  secret  heart  despises  training. 
He  knows  how  much  depends  on  it,  and  as  he  is 
not  apt  to  possess  much  discriminating  power,  he 
is  not  likely  to  mark  off  any  particular  class  of 
work  as  not  needing  it.  What  the»Short-Hairs  dis- 
like in  the  Swallow-Tails  is  the  feeling  of  personal 
superiority  which  they  imagine  them  to  entertain, 
and  which  they  think  finds  a  certain  expression  in 
careful  dressing  and  in  the  possession  of  certain 
accomplishments.  In  fact,  the  Swallow  -  Tails 
whom  the  New  York  rough  detests  and  would  like 
to  keep  out  of  public  life,  belong  to  the  class 
known  in  Massachusetts  as  the  "  White-cravat- 
and-daily-bath  gentlemen,"  and  which  is  there 
just  as  unpopular  as  here,  and  has  even  greater 
difficulty  in  getting  office  there  than  here. 

14 


210  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

The  line  of  division  in  New  York  is,  however, 
drawn  much  lower  down.  The  Massachusetts 
Short-Hair  is  a  man  of  intelligence,  of  some  edu- 
cation, who  wears  a  plain  black  neglige  and  rum- 
pled shirt-front  and  soft  hat,  and  disregards  the 
condition  of  his  nails,  and  takes  a  warm  bath  occa- 
sionally. The  New  Yorker,  on  the  other  hand, 
wears  such  clothes  as  he  can  get,  and  only  bathes  in 
the  hot  weather  and  off  the  public  wharf.  If  he 
has  good  luck  and  makes  money,  either  in  the  pub- 
lic service  or  otherwise,  he  displays  it  not  in  any 
richness  in  his  toilet  or  in  greater  care  of  his  per- 
son, but  in  the  splendor  of  his  jewels.  One  of  his 
first  purchases  is  a  diamond-pin,  which  he  sticks 
in  his  shirt-front,  but  he  never  sees  any  connec- 
tion of  an  aesthetic  kind  between  the  linen  and 
the  pin,  and  wijl  wear  the  latter  in  a  very  dirty 
shirt-front  as  cheerfully  as  in  a  clean  one — in  fact, 
more  cheerfully,  as  he  has  a  vague  feeling  that  by 
showing  it  he  atones  for  or  excuses  the  condition 
of  the  linen.  In  fact,  the  Short-Hair  view  of 
dress  would  be  found  on  examination  to  be,  in 
nearly  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  some- 
thing of  this  kind:  that  the  constant  care  of  the 
person  which  produces  an  impression  of  neatness 
and  appropriateness,  and  makes  a  man  look  "  gen- 
teel," is  the  expression  of  a  certain  state  of  mind ; 
that  a  man  would  not  take  so  much  trouble  to 


"SHORT-HAIRS"  AND  ^SWALLOW-TAILS"        211 

make  himself  look  different  from  the  ordinary  run 
of  people  whom  he  meets,  unless  he  thought  him- 
self in  some  way  superior  to  them,  or,  in  other 
words,  thought  himself  a  "  gentleman  "  and  them 
common  fellows,  and  that  he  therefore  fairly  de- 
serves the  hatred  of  those  of  whom  he  thus 
openly  parades  his  contempt. 

A  New  York  Short-Hair  seldom  goes  farther 
than  this  in  his  speculations,  though  he  doubtless 
has  also  a  vague  idea  that  a  well-dressed  man  is 
not  so  likely  to  stand  by  his  friends  in  politics  as 
a  more  careless  one.  In  New  England,  as  might 
be  expected,  however,  the  popular  dislike  of  that 
"eulte  de  la  personne,"  as  some  Frenchman  has 
called  it,  which  distinguishes  "  the  white-cravat- 
aud-daily-bath  gentleman,"  has  provided  itself 
with  a  moral  basis.  There  is  there  a  strong  pre- 
sumption that  the  Swallow-Tail  is  a  frivolous  per- 
son, who  bestows  on  his  tailoring,  and  his  linen, 
and  his  bathing,  and  his  manners  the  time  and 
attention  which  the  Short-Hair  or  "plain  blunt 
man  "  reserves  for  reflection  on  the  graver  concerns 
of  life,  and  especially  on  the  elevation  of  his  felloAv- 
men,  and  this  presumption  even  a  career  of  philan- 
thropy and  the  composition  of  the  "  Principia " 
would  not  in  many  minds  suffice  to  overthrow. 
We  believe  it  is  authentic  that  General  Grant 
never  got  over  the  impression  produced  on  him  by 


212  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

seeing  that  Mr.  Motley  parted  his  hair  in  the  mid- 
dle, and  it  is  said — and  if  not  true  is  not  unlikely, 
—that  Mr.  E.  H.  Dana's  practice  of  wearing  kid 
gloves  told  heavily  against  him  in  his  memorable 
contest  with  Butler  in  the  Essex  district.  "We 
may  ah1  remember,  too,  the  gigantic  efforts  made 
by  Mr.  Suinner  and  others  in  Congress  to  have 
our  representatives  abroad  prohibited  from  wear- 
ing court-dress.  What  dress  they  wore  was  of 
course,  per  se,  a  matter  of  no  consequence,  pro- 
vided it  was  not  immodest.  The  fervor  on  the  sub- 
ject was  due  to  the  deeply  rooted  feeling  that  even 
the  amount  of  care  for  externals  exhibited  in  put- 
ting on  an  embroidered  coat  or  knee-breeches 
indicated  a  light-mindedness  against  the  very  ap- 
pearance of  which  the  minister  of  a  republic  ought 
to  guard  carefully.  It  is  partly  to  produce  the 
effect  of  seriousness  of  purpose,  but  mainly  to 
avoid  the  appearance  of  airs  of  social  or  mental 
superiority,  that  nearly  all  skilful  politicians  dress 
with  elaborate  negligence.  In  most  country  dis- 
tricts no  complaints  can  be  made  of  men  in  office 
such  as  the  New  York  Short-Hair  makes  against 
the  Swallow-Tail.  They  fling  on  their  easy-fitting 
black  clothes  in  a  way  that  leaves  them  their  whole 
time  for  the  study  of  public  affairs  and  attention 
to  the  wants  of  their  constituents,  and  at  the  same 
time  recalls  their  humble  beginnings. 


"SHOUT-HAIRS"  AND   "SWALLOW-TAILS"       213 

What  strikes  one,  however,  as  most  curious  in  the 
controversy  between  the  Short-Hairs  and  the  Swal- 
low-Tails is  the  illustration  it  affords  of  the  rigidity 
with  which  every  class  or  grade  in  civilization  treats 
its  own  social  conventions,  whatever  they  may 
be,  as  final,  and  as  having  some  subtle  but  neces- 
sary connection  with  morals.  When  the  Indian 
squats  round  the  tribal  pot  in  his  breech-clout,  and 
eats  his  dinner  with  his  dirty  paw,  he  is  fully  sat- 
isfied that  he  is  as  well  equipped,  both  as  regards 
dress  and  manners,  not  only  as  a  man  need  be,  but 
as  a  man  ought  to  be.  The  toilet,  the  chamber, 
and  the  dinner  -  table  of  a  plain  New  England 
farmer  he  treats  as  wasteful  and  ridiculous  excess, 
and  if  good  for  anything,  good  only  for  plunder. 
The  farmer,  on  the  other  hand,  loathes  the  In- 
dian and  his  ways,  and  thinks  him  a  filthy  beast, 
and  that  he  (the  farmer)  has  reached  the  limits  of 
the  proper  as  regards  clothes  and  food  and  per- 
sonal habits,  and  that  the  city  man  who  puts 
greater  elaboration  into  his  life  is  a  fribble,  who  is 
to  be  pitied,  if  not  despised  and  distrusted.  In 
short,  we  can  hardly  go  one  step  into  the  contro- 
versy without  coming  on  the  old  question,  What 
are  luxuries  and  what  necessities  ?  and,  as  usual, 
the  majority  decides  it  in  the  manner  that  best 
suits  itself.  It  may  be  said  without  exaggeration 
that  the  progress  of  civilization  has  consisted 


214  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

largely  in  the  raising  of  what  is  called  "  the  stand- 
ard of  living,"  or,  in  other  words,  the  multiplica- 
tion of  the  things  deemed  necessary  for  personal 
comfort,  and,  as  this  raising  of  the  standard  has 
always  been  begun  by  the  few,  the  many  have  al- 
ways fought  against  it  as  a  sign  of  selfishness  or 
affectation  until  they  themselves  were  able  to  adopt 
it. 

The  history  of  the  bath  furnishes  a  curious 
though  tolerably  familiar  illustration  of  this.  The 
practice  of  bathing  disappeared  from  Western 
Europe  with  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.  The 
barbarians  where  themselves  dirty  fellows,  like  the 
Indians,  and  their  descendants  remained  dirty  in 
spite  of  the  growth  of  civilization  among  them, 
putting  their  money,  like  the  Short-Hair,  mainly 
into  jeAvels  and  other  ornaments.  As  long  as  linen 
was  scarce  and  dear,  changes  were,  of  course,  sel- 
dom made,  and  the  odor  of  even  "  the  best  society  " 
was  so  insupportable  that  perfumes  had  to  be  lav- 
ishly used  to  overcome  it.  The  increased  cheap- 
ness of  linen  and  more  recently  of  cotton,  and  the 
increased  facilities  for  bathing,  have  in  our  own 
day  made  personal  cleanliness  a  common  virtue ; 
but  an  occasional  bath  is  still  as  much  as  is 
thought,  through  the  greater  part  of  the  world, 
compatible  with  moral  earnestness  and  high  aims. 
Of  late,  indeed  within  the  memory  of  the  pres- 


"SHORT-HAIRS"  AND   '•'•SWALLOW-TAILS"        215 

ent  generation,  persons  mainly  belonging  to  the 
wealthier  class  in  England  have  boldly  begun  to 
bathe  every  day,  and  they  have  finally  succeeded  in 
establishing  the  rale  that  a  gentleman  is  bound  to 
bathe,  or  "  tub,"  as  they  call  it,  every  day,  and  that 
the  usage  cannot  be  persistently  neglected  without 
loss  of  position.  Indeed,  there  are  few  social  cas- 
uists in  England  who  would  decide,  without  great 
hesitation  and  anxiety,  that  any  English-speaking 
man  was  a  gentleman  who  did  not  take  a  daily 
bath.  That  this  view  of  the  matter  should  be  ac- 
cepted by  the  great  body  of  those  who  would 
rather  not  bathe  every  day  is  not  to  be  expected, 
nor  is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  they  should  con- 
sider it  offensive,  and  that  the  practice  of  sponging 
one's  self  in  cold  water  every  morning  should  in 
caucuses  be  looked  on  as  a  disqualification  for  polit- 
ical life.  There  is,  of  course,  a  necessary  and  pro- 
voking, though  tacit,  assumption  of  superiority  in 
the  display  of  greater  cleanliness  than  other  people 
show,  just  as  there  is  in  coming  into  a  room  and 
finding  fault  with  the  closeness  of  the  air  in  which 
other  people  are  sitting  comfortably.  It  is  tanta- 
mount to  saying  that  what  is  good  enough  for  them 
is  not  good  enough  for  you,  and  they  always  either 
openly  or  secretly  resent  it. 

The  popular  distrust  of  the  practice  of  wearing 
white  cravats  in  the  evening  may  be  traced  to  the 


216  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

same  causes.  The  savage  makes  no  change  of 
toilet  for  the  evening.  He  dresses  for  war  and 
religious  ceremonies,  but  he  goes  to  a  social  re- 
union or  feast  in  such  clothes  as  he  happens  to 
have  on  when  the  invitation  finds  him.  The  plain 
man  of  civilized  life,  under  similar  circumstances, 
puts  on  a  clean  shirt  and  his  best  suit  of  clothes. 
This  suit,  among  the  European  peasantry,  is  apt 
to  be  of  simply  the  same  cut  and  material  as  the 
working  suit,  or,  as  it  would  be  called  in  Brook- 
lyn, "the  garb  of  toil."  Among  Americans,  it  is  a 
black  suit,  like  that  of  a  clergyman,  and  includes  a 
silk  cravat,  generally  black,  but  permissibly  colored. 
The  whole  matter  is,  however,  one  of  pure  conven- 
tion. Now,  it  has  been  found  of  late  years  a  mat- 
ter of  convenience,  and  of  great  convenience  espe- 
cially to  hard-worked  men  and  men  of  moderate 
means  who  are  exposed  to  the  constant  social  de- 
mands of  the  great  cities  of  the  world,  to  have  a 
costume  in  which  one  can  appear  on  any  festive 
occasion,  great  or  small,  which  all,  gentle  or  simple, 
are  alike  expected  to  wear,  which  is  neither  rich  nor 
gaudy,  and  in  which  every  man  may  feel  sure  that 
he  is  properly  dressed ;  and  the  dress  fixed  on  for 
this  purpose  now  throughout  the  civilized  world  is 
the  plain  suit  of  black,  with  the  swallow-tailed  coat, 
commonly  called  "  evening  dress." 
Nothing  can  be  simpler  or  less  pretentious,  or 


"SHORT-HAIRS"  AND  "SWALLOW-TAILS"       217 

more  democratic.  Nobody  can  add  anything  to  it 
or  take  anything  away  from  it.  Many  attempts  to 
modify  it  have  been  made  during  the  last  thirty 
years  by  leaders  of  fashion,  and  they  have  all  failed, 
because  it  meets  one  of  the  great  wants  of  human 
nature.  It  is  only  within  the  last  fifteen  years  that 
it  has  obtained  a  firm  foothold  in  American  cities. 
People  looked  on  it  with  suspicion,  as  a  sign  of  some 
inward  and  spiritual  naughtiness,  and  regarded  the 
frock-coat  with  its  full  skirts  as  the  only  garment 
in  which  a  serious-minded  man,  with  a  proper 
sense  of  his  origin  and  destiny,  and  correct  feel- 
ings about  popular  government,  could  make  his 
appearance  in  a  lady's  parlor.  Why,  nobody  could 
tell,  for  there  was  a  time,  not  very  far  back,  when 
the  frock-coat  was  itself  an  innovation.  Of  late — 
that  is,  within,  perhaps,  twenty  years — the  Swallow- 
Tails  of  the  world  have  exchanged  the  black  or 
colored  for  a  white  cravat,  and  justify  themselves 
by  saying  that  it  not  only  looks  cleaner,  but  is 
cleaner  of  necessity  than  a  silk  one,  and  that  you 
cannot  look  too  clean  or  fresh  about  your  throat 
when  you  present  yourself  in  a  lady's  house  on  a 
festive  occasion.  Nevertheless,  the  plain,  blunt 
men  are  not  satisfied.  They  do  not  as  yet  feel 
sure  as  to  its  meaning.  They  think  it  indicates 
either  over-thoughtfulness  about  trifles  or  else  a 
leaning,  slight  though  it  be,  toward  despotism  and 


218  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

free-trade.  They  will  now  all,  or  nearly  all,  wear 
evening  dress  with  a  black  cravat,  but  even  those 
of  them  who  will  consent  to  put  on  a  white  one 
do  so  with  a  certain  shamefacedness  and  sense  of 
backsliding,  and  of  treachery  to  some  good  cause, 
though  they  do  not  exactly  know  which. 


JUDGES  AND  WITNESSES 

THE  proceedings  in  the  recent  Bravo  poisoning 
case  have  raised  a  good  deal  of  discussion  in  Eng- 
land as  to  the  license  of  counsel  in  cross-examina- 
tion— a  question  which  recent  trials  in  this  coun- 
try have  shown  to  possess  no  little  interest  for  us 
also.  In  the  Bravo  inquest,  as  in  the  Tichborne 
case  and  the  Beecher  trial  of  the  last  year,  the 
cross-examination  of  the  witnesses  was  pushed 
into  matters  very  remotely  connected  with  the  is- 
sue under  trial,  so  that  the  general  result  of  the 
inquiry  was  not,  as  in  most  cases,  the  eliciting  of  a 
certain  number  of  facts  bearing  on  the  question  in 
court,  but  a  complete  revelation  of  the  whole  pri- 
vate life  of  a  family,  or  of  a  certain  part  of  it,  and 
even  of  a  whole  circle  of  families.  The  glaring  ex- 
posure of  matters  usually  kept  close,  and  not  even 
talked  about,  formed  in  fact  the  great  fascination 
of  these  causes  celebres.  It  was  difficult  at  the 
first  blush  to  see  how  in  the  Beecher  trial  Tilton's 
eccentric  nocturnal  habits  could  have  thrown  any 
light  upon  the  question  of  Beecher's  guilt ;  nor  in 


220  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

the  Tichborne  case  was  it  at  all  apparent  that  an  an- 
swer to  the  inquiry  put  to  some  witness — whether 
he  had,  at  some  distant  period  of  time,  had  im- 
proper relations  with  some  persons  not  connected 
with  the  case — could  even  remotely  tend  to  settle 
the  claimant's  identity.  The  Pall  Mall  Gazette, 
discussing  this  kind  of  cross-examination  resorted 
to  for  the  purpose  of  breaking  down  the  credit  of  a 
witness — of  "  showing  him  up  "  to  the  jury,  and 
thus  inducing  them  to  pay  less  attention  to  his 
evidence  than  they  otherwise  would — has  stated 
the  case  in  the  following  manner :  "  Suppose,  it 
says,  that  the  legislature  of  a  free  country  were 
some  fine  morning  to  pass  a  law  authorizing  any- 
one who  chose  to  take  it  into  his  head  to  compel 
any  inhabitant  of  the  country  to  answer  any  ques- 
tions he  might  think  fit  to  put  with  regards  to  the 
other's  moral  character, -his  relations  with  his  par- 
ents, brothers  and  sisters,  wife  and  children,  his 
business  affairs,  his  property,  his  debts,  and  in 
fact  his  whole  private  life,  and  to  do  all  this  with- 
out there  being  any  dispute  between  them  or  even 
any  alleged  grievance,  what  would  be  thought  of 
such  a  law  ?  Would  it  be  endured  for  an  in- 
stant? "  Now,  this,  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  con- 
tinues, is  to-day  the  law  of  England.  It  is  just 
to  this  odious  tyranny  which  anyone,  by  bringing  a 
suit,  can,  under  the  vague  and  almost  unlimited 


JUDGES  AND    WITNESSES  221 

power  to  punish  for  "contempt  of  court,"  force 
submission. 

The  law  on  this  subject  is,  generally  speaking, 
the  same  in  the  United  States  as  in  England,  and 
this  tyranny,  if  it  really  exists,  weighs  upon  us  as 
heavily  as  it  does  upon  Englishmen.  The  first 
question  that  suggests  itself  is  whether  this  is 
really  a  fair  statement  of  law,  and,  of  course,  the 
Pall  Mall  Gazette  admits  that  there  exist  limita- 
tions of  the  right  of  cross-examination,  but  it  con- 
tends that  these  are  so  undefined  as  to  amount  to 
little  or  nothing  in  the  way  of  protection.  The 
authorities  contain  little  on  the  subject,  except 
that  cross-examination  as  to  credit  is  allowed  to 
go  very  far,  and  that  judges  may  in  their  discre- 
tion stop  it  when  it  goes  too  far.  But  judicial  dis- 
cretion is  proverbially  an  uncertain  thing.  It 
varies  not  merely  with  the  court,  but  even  in  the 
same  judge  it  is  affected  by  the  state  of  his 
temper,  his  curiosity,  his  feeling  toward  the  coun- 
sel who  is  examining,  and  by  thousands  of  other 
things  that  no  one  can  know  anything  about  or 
depend  upon.  Usually  it  is  easier  not  to  exercise 
than  to  exercise  discretion,  and  the  result  is  that 
the  right  of  cross-examination  is  usually  un- 
checked, and  in  most  important  cases  which  are 
widely  reported  the  right  is  pushed  to  lengths 
which,  with  witnesses  of  any  sensibility,  amount 


222  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

to  a  process  of  slow  torture.  If  the  right  is 
abused  in  England,  it  is  unquestionably  abused 
here,  and  probably  at  the  time  of  the  Beecher 
trial  we  should  have  had  complaints  about  it  but 
for  the  fact  that  in  the  singular  society  in  which 
the  parties  to  that  case  lives,  a  craving  for  noto- 
riety had  been  developed  which  made  any  discus- 
sion of  their  private  affairs  less  disagreeable  than 
it  is  to  most  people.  But  with  the  great  major- 
ity of  mankind  there  is  nothing  more  odious  than 
the  extraction,  by  a  sharp,  hostile  lawyer,  from 
their  own  unwilling  lips,  of  the  details  of  their 
moral  history.  There  is  probably  no  one  in  ex- 
istence, however  good,  and  however  quiet  his  con- 
science may  be,  who  can  endure  without  a  shud- 
der the  thought  of  every  transaction  of  his  past 
life  being  dragged  out  in  a  court  of  justice  for  the 
amusement  of  a  gaping  .crowd.  Exactly  how  far 
the  right  is  abused,  and  how  far  the  discretionary 
powers  of  courts  to  limit  its  abuse  accomplish 
their  end,  it  is  impossible  to  say,  for  it  is  only  in 
sporadic  cases  of  unusual  importance  that  interest 
in  the  result  is  strong  enough  to  warrant  a  lawyer's 
going  to  great  length  in  cross-examination,  Usu- 
ally, too,  it  should  be  said  for  the  credit  of  the 
profession,  reputable  lawyers  shrink  from  outrag- 
ing a  witness's  sensibility.  But  niter  everything  is 
admitted  that  can  be  admitted  in  favor  of  the  ex- 


JUDGES  AND    WITNESSES  233 

isting  state  of  the  law,  it  is  impossible  to  deny 
that  the  door  is  left  very  wide  open  to  disgrace- 
ful assaults  upon  credit  which  inflict  serious  and 
irreparable  damage. 

The  difficulty  is  not  in  pointing  out  the  evil, 
which  is  plain  enough,  but  in  suggesting  a  remedy. 
The  right  of  cross-examination  is  one  of  the  most 
important  instruments  provided  by  the  machinery 
of  our  law  for  the  discovery  of  facts,  and  on  the 
credibility  of  witnesses  all  cases  hinge.  The  mo- 
ment we  begin  to  limit  it  by  fixed  rules  we  enter 
on  dadgerous  ground.  It  might  seem  as  if  the 
solution  of  the  problem  lay  in  the  enactment  of  a 
rule  that  witnesses  should  only  be  cross-examined 
as  to  their  general  reputation  with  regard  to  truth, 
and  as  to  the  matters  involved  in  the  case  directly 
affecting  their  credibility ;  but  this  would  by  no 
means  do.  Suppose,  for  instance,  that  the  suit  is  a 
common  action  for  the  purchase-money  of  a  piece 
of  cloth,  and  the  defendant  brings  a  witness  who 
swears  that  he  saw  the  defendant  pay  the  money 
to  the  plaintiff,  while  the  plaintiff  has  only  his  own 
evidence  to  rely  upon  in  proof  of  non-payment; 
if,  in  such  case,  the  plaintiff  were  merely  allowed 
to  cross-examine  the  witness  directly,  he  would 
in  all  probability  lose  the  case.  The  testimony 
would  be  two  to  one  against  him,  and  the  story  of 
the  witness  as  the  only  disinterested  person  would 


234  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

probably  be  believed  by  tlie  jury.  But  suppose 
that,  on  cross-examination,  it  turns  out  that  this 
witness  can  give  no  good  account  of  his  manner  of 
earning  his  living  or  of  his  place  of  residence; 
that  he  had  been  arrested  not  long  before  as  a 
vagrant,  and  that  down  to  the  time  of  the  action 
he  had  no  respectable  clothes,  and  that  he  suddenly 
became  possessed  of  some ;  that  he  deserted  from 
the  army  immediately  after  getting  his  bounty- 
money,  and  so  on,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
his  credit  with  the  jury  would  be  much  impaired, 
and  justly  so,  although  no  direct  evidence  »of  his 
being  a  perjurer  had  been  introduced,  and  not  a 
particle  of  his  testimony  had  been  strictly  contro- 
verted. Everyone  who  has  followed  with  any  care 
the  evidence  taken  in  celebrated  murder  trials  or 
divorce  cases  knows  how  frequently  a  rigid^  cross- 
examination  lays  bare  motives  and  prejudices  on 
the  part  of  witnesses  which,  often  without  their 
knowing  it  themselves,  tend  to  bias  their  account 
of  facts. 

The  problem,  therefore,  is  to  devise  some  means 
by  which  these  benefits  of  a  searching  cross-exam- 
ination may  be  retained  and  yet  the  abuse  got  rid 
of.  The  only  feasible  way  of  meeting  the  diffi- 
culty yet  proposed  is  that  of  drawing  up  a  series 
of  rules  or  general  directions  as  to  evidence  which 
shall  not  attempt  to  prescribe  formal  limits  for 


JUDGES  AND    WITNESSES  225 

cross-examination,  but  shall  lay  down  in  explicit 
words  the  general  principles  which  should  govern 
a  judge  in  such  cases.  These  rules  would  prac- 
tically be  a  definition  of  the  "  discretion "  he  is 
now  supposed  to  exercise.  They  would,  for  ex- 
ample, direct  him  not  to  allow  an  examination  into 
matters  so  remote  in  time  from  the  case  in  hand 
that  they  can  have  no  bearing  on  the  credibility 
of  the  witness;  not  to  allow  questions  to  be  put 
which  are  plainly  malicious  and  asked  for  the  pur- 
pose of  irritating  the  witness  ;  and  not  to  allow  any 
examination  into  transactions  which,  though  they 
may  have  a  bearing  on  the  character  of  a  witness, 
have  none  on  his  credibility,  e.g.,  an  inquiry,  in  a 
murder  case,  of  a  witness  in  good  standing,  as  to 
domestic  difficulties  witli  a  deceased  wife.  It  is 
not  qasy  to  lay  down  beforehand  any  rules  by 
which  we  can  discriminate  the  kind  of  evidence  as 
to  transactions  involving  moral  character  which 
ought  not  to  affect  credibility,  but  every  one  can 
easily  imagine  instances  of  such  evidence.  Gen- 
eral directions  of  the  kind  we  have  just  suggested 
are  no  more  than  a  formal  enunciation  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  "  discretion "  of  a  good  judge 
would  be  and  is  exercised.  They  do  not  change 
the  law,  but  they  remind  judges  of  what  they  may 
forget,  and  they  may  be  appealed  to  by  a  persecut- 
ed witness  with  far  more  certainty  than  judicial 

15 


226  REFLECTION'S  AND   COMMENTS 

11  discretion."  In  the  Indian  Code,  which  is  prob- 
ably the  best  body  of  law  that  the  legal  reform 
movement  begun  by  Bentham  in  the  last  century 
has  yet  produced,  rules  of  this  kind  have  been  laid 
down,  and  we  believe  have  been  found  to  work 
with  success. 


"THE  DEBTOR  CLASS" 

A  WASHINGTON  correspondent,  describing,  the 
other  day,  the  motives  which  animated  the  major- 
ity in  Congress  in  its  performances  on  the  cur- 
rency question,  said,  and  we  believe  truly,  that  most 
of  the  inflationists  in  that  body  knew  very  well  what 
the  evils  of  paper-money  were,  so  that  argument 
on  that  point  was  wasted  on  them.  But  they  knew 
also  that  large  issues  of  irredeemable  paper  would 
make  it  easier  for  debtors  to  pay  off  their  cred- 
itors, and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  as  the  num- 
ber of  debtors  in  the  country  was  greater  than 
the  number  of  creditors,  it  was  wise  policy  for  a 
politician  to  curry  favor  with  the  former  by  help- 
ing them  to  cheat  the  persons  who  had  lent  them 
money  or  sold  them  goods.  This  explanation  of 
the  conduct  of  the  majority  may  be  a  startling  and 
sad  one,  but  that  it  is  highly  probable  nobody  can 
deny.  All  the  debates  help  to  confirm  it.  In 
every  speech,  made  either  in  opposition  to  resump- 
tion or  in  favor  of  inflation,  a  portion  of  the  com- 
munity known  as  "  the  debtor  class  "  has  appeared 


228  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

as  the  object  of  the  orator's  tenderest  solicitude. 
The  great  reason  for  not  returning  to  specie  pay- 
ments hitherto  has  been  the  fear  that  contraction 
would  press  hard  on  "  the  debtor  class ; "  it  is  for 
"  the  debtor  class  "  we  need  more  paper  "  per  cap- 
ita ; "  and  indeed,  no  matter  what  proposal  we 
make  in  the  direction  of  financial  reform,  we  are 
met  by  pictures  of  the  frightful  effects  which  will 
be  produced  by  it  on  the  "  debtor  class."  More- 
over, in  listening  to  its  champions,  a  foreigner 
might  conclude  that  in  America  debtors  either  all 
live  together  in  a  particular  part  of  the  country,  or 
worse,  a  particular  costume,  like  mediaeval  Jews, 
and  are  divided  from  the  rest  of  the  community 
by  tastes  and  habits,  so  that  it  would  be  proper 
for  an  American  to  put  "  debtor  "  or  "  creditor  " 
on  his  card  as  a  description  of  his  social  status. 
He  might,  too,  not  unnaturally  begin  to  mourn 
over  the  negligence  of  the  framers  of  the  Constitu- 
tion in  not  recognizing  this  marked  distribution  of 
American  society.  Truly,  he  would  say,  the  debt- 
ors ought  to  have  representatives  in  the  Senate 
and  House  to  look  after  their  special  interests ; 
these  unfortunate  and  helpless  men  ought  not  to  be 
left  to  the  charitable  care  of  volunteers  like  Messrs. 
Morton,  and  Logan,  and  Kelly.  The  great  sham 
and  pretence  with  which  America  has  so  long 
tried  to  impose  on  Europe,  that  there  were  no 


"  THE  DEBTOR  CLASS"  229 

classes  in  the  United  States,  ought  at  last  to  be 
formally  swept  away,  and  proper  legal  provision 
made  for  the  protection  of  a  body  of  men  which 
has  been  in  all  ages  the  object  of  atrocious  oppres- 
sion, and  seems  in  America,  strange  to  say,  to 
constitute  the  larger  portion  of  the  community. 
In  travelling  through  the  country,  too,  he  would 
be  constantly  on  the  lookout  for  the  debtors.  He 
would  ask  in  the  cities  for  the  "  debtors'  quarter," 
and  when  introduced  to  a  gentleman  in  the  cars  or 
in  the  hotels,  would  inquire  privately  whether  he 
was  a  debtor  or  a  creditor,  so  as  to  avoid  hurting 
his  feelings  by  indiscreet  allusion  to  specie  or  con- 
traction. His  amazement  would  be  very  great  on 
learning  that  there  was  no  way  of  telling  whether 
an  American  citizen  was  either  debtor  or  creditor  ; 
that  the  "  debtor  class  "  was  not  to  be  found,  as 
such,  in  any  part  of  the  country,  or,  indeed,  any- 
where but  in  the  brains  of  the  Logans  and  Mor- 
tons, and  was  introduced  into  the  debates  simply 
as  a  John  Doe  or  Richard  Roe,  to  give  a  little 
vividness  to  the  speaker's  railings  against  prop- 
erty. 

Now,  as  in  every  civilized  society,  the  vast  ma- 
jority of  the  population  of  this  country  are  in  debt, 
to  some  slight  degree.  It  is  only  paupers,  crim- 
inals, and  lunatics  who  owe  absolutely  nothing. 
The  day -laborer  is  pretty  sure  to  have  a  small  bill 


230  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

at  the  grocer's,  and  all  his  neighbors,  in  the  ascend- 
ing grades  of  commercial  respectability,  no  mat- 
ter how  prompt  and  accurate  they  may  be  in  the 
discharge  of  their  obligations,  are  sure  to  owe  the 
butcher  and  baker  and  milkman  a  greater  or  less 
amount.  In  fact  the  conduct  of  life  on  a  cash 
basis  would  be  impossible  or  intolerable.  Of 
course,  too,  there  are  scattered  all  over  the  country 
men  who  owe  a  great  deal  of  money  and  to  whom 
little  is  due,  and  whose  interest  it  would  be  to  have 
the  coinage  adulterated.  But  then  the  number  of 
these  persons  is  very  small,  and  they  are  mostly 
great  speculators,  who  pass  for  rich  men,  and  whose 
interests  Congress  is  in  reality  not  in  the  least  de- 
sirous of  protecting.  Poor  men,  as  a  rule,  are 
hardly  ever  greatly  in  debt,  because  nobody  will 
trust  them.  We  suspect  that  the  number  of  those 
in  this  city  who  could  borrow  fifty  dollars  without 
security  would  not  be  found  to  be  over  one-twen- 
tieth of  the  population.  The  persons  to  whom 
loans  are  made  by  banks,  insurance  companies, 
and  other  institutions  are  almost  all  men  of  wealth 
or  men  who  have  the  conduct  of  great  enterprises, 
and  do  not  need  legislation  to  help  them  to  take 
care  of  themselves.  They  are  great  merchants,  or 
manufacturers,  or  brokers,  or  contractors,  or  rail- 
road-builders. In  fact,  in  so  far  as  the  debtors 
can  be  called  a  class,  they  form  a  very  small  class, 


"  THE  DEBTOR   CLASS"  231 

and  a  class  of  remarkable  shrewdness  and  of  enor- 
mous power,  over  whom  it  is  ludicrous  for  the 
Government  to  exercise  a  fatherly  care. 

The  bulk  of  the  population  in  this,  as  in  every 
moderately  prosperous  community  in  the  western 
world  is  composed  of  creditors.  The  creditor  class, 
in  other  words,  contains  the  great  body  of  the 
American  people,  and  any  legislation  intended  to 
enable  debtors  to  cheat  is  aimed  at  nineteen-twen- 
tieths,  at  the  very  least,  of  American  citizens. 
Any  man  who  remains  very  long  in  the  position  of 
a  debtor  simply,  and  acquires  no  footing  as  a  cred- 
itor, disappears  from  the  surface  of  society.  Bank- 
ruptcy or  the  house  of  correction  is  pretty  sure  to 
overtake  him.  It  would  be  wellnigh  impossible  in 
this  large  city  or  in  any  other  to  find  a  man  who 
had  no  pecuniary  claims  on  someone  else.  The 
humblest  hod-carrier  becomes  a  creditor  every  day 
after  making  his  first  ascent  of  the  ladder,  and  re- 
mains so  until '  Saturday  night,  and  continually  re- 
places himself  in  "  the  creditor  class,"  as  long  as 
life  and  health  remain  to  him  ;  and  the  same 
phenomenon  presents  itself  in  all  fields  of  industry. 
Every  sewing-girl  and  maid-servant  is  looking  for- 
ward to  a  payment  of  earned  money,  and  has  the 
strongest  interest  in  knowing  for  certain  what  its 
purchasing  power  will  be. 

All  depositors  in  savings-banks,  and  their  num- 


232  REFLECTIONS  AND  COJfJfE.VTS 

ber  in  New  York  City  is  greater  than  that  of  the 
voters,  belong  to  the  creditor  class  ;  all  holders  of 
policies  of  insurances,  all  owners  of  government 
bonds  and  State  and  bank  stocks,  belong  to  it 
also.  The  Western  farmers  and  house-owners  who 
have  borrowed  money  at  the  East  on  bond  and 
mortgage,  who  probably  make  as  near  an  approach 
to  a  debtor  class  as  any  other  body  or  persons  in 
the  community,  and  whom  Congressional  dema- 
gogues probably  hoped  to  serve  by  enabling  them 
to  outwit  their  creditors,  even  these  are  not  simply 
or  mainly  debtors.  Any  man  who  is  carrying  on  his 
business  with  borrowed  money,  on  which  he  pays 
eight  or  ten  per  cent.,  must  be  every  week  putting 
other  people  in  debt  to  him  or  he  would  speedily 
be  ruined.  The  means  of  paying  those  who  have 
trusted  him  is  acquired  by  his  trusting  others. 
Either  he  is  selling  goods  on  credit,  or  entering 
into  contracts,  or  rendering  services  which  give  him 
the  position  of  a  creditor,  and  make  it  of  the  last 
importance  to  him  that  the  value  of  money  and 
the  state  of  the  public  mind  about  money  should 
not  be  materially  different  six  months  hence  from 
what  they  are  now. 

Of  course  there  is  more  than  one  way  of  denning 
the  term  "self-interest."  There  is  one  sense  in 
which  it  is  used  by  children,  savages,  and  thieves, 
and  which  makes  it  mean  immediate  gratification, 


"  THE  DEBTOR   CLASS"  233 

and  this  appears  to  be  the  sense  in  which  it  is 
used  by  the  inflationists  in  Congress,  in  consider- 
ing what  is  for  the  good  of  those  Western  men 
who  owe  money  at  the  East.  In  that  sense,  it  is 
a  good  thing  for  a  man  to  lie,  cheat,  steal,  and 
embezzle  whenever  it  shall  appear  that  by  so 
doing  he  will  satisfy  his  appetites  or  put  money 
in  his  pockets.  But  civilized  and  commercial, 
to  say  nothing  of  Christian,  society  is  founded 
on  the  theory  that  men  look  forward  and  expect 
to  cany  on  business  for  several  years,  and  to  lay 
up  money  for  their  old  age,  and  establish  their 
children  in  life,  and  that  they  recognize  the  ne- 
cessity of  self-restraint  and  loyalty  to  engage- 
ments. The  doctrines,  on  the  other  hand,  which 
are  preached  in  Congress  about  the  best  mode  of 
dealing  with  debts  —  that  is,  with  other  people's 
money — have  never  before  been  heard  in  a  civil- 
ized legislature,  or  anywhere  outside  of  a  council 
of  buccaneers,  and,  if  acted  on  by  the  community, 
would  produce  anarchy.  The  fact  that  Morton  and 
Butler,  who  preach  them  and  get  them  embodied 
in  forms  of  words  called  "acts,"  are  legislators, 
disguises,  but  ought  not  to  disguise,  the  other 
fact,  that  these  two  men  are  simply  playing  the 
part  of  receivers  or  "fences."  There  probably 
never  was  a  more  striking  illustration  of  the  im- 
morality in  which,  as  it  was  long  ago  remarked, 


334  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

any  principle  of  government  is  sure  to  land  people 
if  pushed  to  its  last  extreme,  than  the  theory 
which  is  now  urged  on  our  attention — that  supe- 
riority of  numbers  will  justify  fraud ;  or,  in  other 
words,  that  if  the  number  of  those  who  borrow 
should  happen  to  be  greater  than  the  number  of 
those  who  lend,  "a  vote  "  is  all  that  is  needed  to 
wipe  out  the  debts,  either  openly  or  by  payment 
in  bits  of  paper  or  pebbles.  Of  course,  the  con- 
verse of  this  would  also  be  true — that  if  the  lend- 
ers were  in  a  majority,  they  would  be  justified  in 
reducing  the  debtors  to  slavery.  If  the  question 
of  humanity  or  brotherhood  were  raised  as  an  ob- 
jection, that,  too,  could  be  settled  by  a  ballot.  We 
laugh  at  the  poor  African  who  consults  his  wooden 
fetish  before  he  takes  any  step  in  the  business  of 
his  wretched  and  darkened  life ;  but  when  a  Cau- 
casian demagogue  tries  to  show  us  that  the  springs 
of  justice  and  truth  are  to  be  found  in  a  compar- 
ison of  ten  thousand  bits  of  paper  with  nine  thou- 
sand similar  bits,  we  listen  with  gravity,  and  are 
half  inclined  to  believe  that  there  is  something 
in  it. 


COMMENCEMENT  ADMONITION 

IT  is  quite  evident  that  with  the  multiplication 
of  colleges,  which  is  very  rapid,  it  will,  before 
long,  become  impossible  for  the  newspapers  to 
furnish  the  reports  of  the  proceedings  in  and 
about  commencement  which  they  now  lay  before 
their  readers  with  such  profuseness.  The  long 
letters  describing  with  wearisome  minuteness  what 
has  been  described  already  fifty  times  will  un- 
doubtedly before  long  be  given  up.  So  also,  we 
fancy,  will  the  reports  of  the  "  baccalaureate  ser- 
mons," if  these  addresses  are  to  retain  their  value 
as  pieces  of  parting  advice  to  young  men.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  newspaper  literature,  on  the 
whole,  less  edifying,  and  sometimes  more  amus- 
ing, than  the  reporter's  precis  of  pulpit  discourses, 
so  thoroughly  does  he  deprive  them  of  force  and 
vigor  and  point,  and  often  of  intelligibility.  The 
ordinary  sermon  addressed  on  Sunday  to  the  ordi- 
nary congregation  deals  with  a  great  variety  of 
topics,  and  from  many  different  points  of  view,  and 
with  more  or  less  diversity  of  method.  The  bac- 


236  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

calaureate  sermon,  on  the  other  hand,  consists, 
from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  in  the  main  of 
advice  to  youths  at  their  entrance  on  life,  and  the 
substance  of  such  discourses  can,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  undergo  no  great  change  from  year  to  year, 
and  must  be  strikingly  similar  in  all  the  colleges. 
Any  freshness  they  may  have  they  must  owe  to 
the  rhetorical  powers  of  particular  preachers,  and 
even  these  cannot  greatly  vary  in  dealing  with 
so  familiar  a  theme.  What  the  old  man  has  to 
say  to  the  young  man,  the  teacher  to  the  pupil, 
the  father  to  the  son,  at  the  moment  when  the 
gates  of  the  great  world  are  flung  open  to  the  col- 
lege graduate,  has  undergone  but  little  modifica- 
tion in  a  thousand  years,  and  has  become  very 
well  known  to  all  collegians  long  before  they 
take  their  degree.  To  make  the  parting  words 
of  warning  and  encouragement  tell  on  ears  that 
are  now  eager  for  other  and  louder  sounds,  every- 
thing that  can  be  done  needs  to  be  done  to  pre- 
serve their  freshness  and  their  pathos,  and  cer- 
tainly nothing  could  do  as  much  to  deprive  them 
of  both  one  and  the  other  as  hashing  them  up 
annually  in  a  slovenly  report  as  part  of  the  news 
of  the  day. 

It  is  not,  however,  the  advice  contained  in  bac- 
calaureate sermons,  but  all  advice  to  young  men, 
that  needs  in  our  time  to  be  dealt  out  with  great- 


COMMENCEMENT  ADMONITION  237 

er  circumspection  and  economy.  Authority  lias 
within  the  last  hundred  or  even  fifty  years  under- 
gone a  serious  loss  of  power,  and  this  loss  of  power 
has  shown  itself  nowhere  more  markedly  than  in 
the  work  of  education.  It  has  indeed  almost  com- 
pletely changed  the  relation  of  parents  and  chil- 
dren, and  teachers  and  scholars,  so  that  it  is  now 
almost  as  necessary  to  prove  the  reasonableness 
and  utility  of  any  course  of  action  which  is  required 
of  boys  as  of  mature  men.  Persuasion  has,  in 
other  words,  taken  the  place  of  command,  and 
there  is  nobody  left  whose  dictum  owes  much  of  its 
weight  to  his  years  or  his  office.  Boys  as  well  as 
their  elders  now  expect  advice  to  be  based  on  per- 
sonal experience,  and  do  not  listen  with  any  great 
seriousness  or  deference  to  admonitions  the  value 
of  which  the  utterer  has  not  himself  personally 
tested. 

It  follows,  therefore,  that  the  persons  whom  the 
young  men  of  our  time  hear  most  readily  on  the 
conduct  of  life  are  those  who  have  had  practical 
acquaintance  with  the  difficulties  of  living  up  to 
the  ideals  which  are  so  eloquently  painted  in  the 
college  chapel,  and  who  have  found  out  in  their 
own  persons  what  it  costs  to  be  pure  and  upright, 
and  faithful  and  industrious,  and  persistent  in  the- 
struggle  that  goes  on  in  the  various  callings  which 
lie  outside  the  college  walls.  For  this  reason, 


238  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

probably,  no  addresses  at  commencement  have 
the  value  of  those  which  are  delivered  now  and 
then  by  men  who  have  come  back  for  a  brief  day 
to  tell  the  next  generation  of  the  way  life  looks  to 
those  who  for  years  have  been  wrestling  with  its 
problems,  and  have  had  actual  experience  of  the 
virtues  and  defects  of  that  early  equipment  and 
training  on  which  such  enormous  sums  are  now 
spent  in  this  country.  The  more  advice  from  this 
quarter  young  men  get  the  better.  Nobody  can 
talk  so  effectively  to  them  at  the  moment  when 
they  are  about  to  face  the  world  on  their  own  re- 
sponsibility as  the  lawyers  and  merchants  and 
ministers  and  politicians  who  have  been  facing  it 
for  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  with  all  the  outward 
signs  of  success.  If  it  were  possible  for  every  col- 
lege in  the  country  to  get  one  such  man  at  com- 
mencement whose  powers  of  expression  would  do 
justice  to  his  experience,  and  who  for  this  one  day 
in  the  year  would  without  fear  or  favor  tell  what 
he  thought  about  success  and  about  the  conditions 
of  success — about  the  kind  of  troubles  which  beset 
men  in  the  callings  with  which  he  is  most  famil- 
iar— we  should  probably  soon  have  a  body  of  ad- 
vice so  impressive  and  fruitful  that  it  would  serve 
the  needs  and  excite  the  interest  of  more  than  one 
generation.  The  young  have  been  told  to  be  good 


COMMENCEMENT  ADMONITION  239 

until  they  have  grown  weary  of  hearing  it,  partic- 
ularly as  it  is  always  represented  to  them  as  a 
comparatively  simple  matter,  and  when  they  go 
out  in  the  world  and  find  what  a  hard  and  complex 
thing  duty  is  they  are  very  apt  to  look  back  to  the 
ethical  instruction  of  their  college  as  when  in  col- 
lege they  looked  back  to  the  admonitions  of  the 
nursery,  and  return  to  their  alma  mater  in  later 
years  with  much  the  feeling  with  which  a  man 
visits  a  kindly  old  grandmother. 

But  commencements  certainly  draw  forth  noth- 
ing so  curious  as  the  newspaper  article  addressed 
to  the  graduating  class,  and  which  now  seems  to  be 
a  regular  part  of  the  summer's  editorial  work.  It 
seems  to  have  one  object  in  view,  and  only  one, 
and  that  is  preventing  the  graduate  from  thinking 
much  of  his  education  and  his  degree,  or  supposing 
that  they  will  be  of  any  particular  use  to  him  in 
his  entrance  on  life,  or  make  him  any  more  accept- 
able to  the  community.  He  is  warned  that  they 
will  raise  him  in  nobody's  estimation,  and  prove 
rather  a  hinderance  than  a  help  to  him  in  getting  a 
living,  and  that  it  will  be  well  for  him  to  begin  his 
career  by  trying  to  forget  that  he  has  ever  been  in 
college  at  all.  Not  unfrequently  the  discourse 
closes  with  a  suggestion  or  hint  that  the  best 
university  is,  after  all,  the  office  of  "  a  great  daily," 


340  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

and  that  the  kindest  thing  a  fond  father  could  do  for 
a  promising  boy  would  be  to  start  him  as  a  local 
reporter  and  make  him  get  his  first  experience  of 
life  in  the  collection  of  "  city  items."  There  is  in 
all  this  the  expression,  though  in  a  somewhat 
grotesque  form,  of  a  widespread  popular  feeling 
that  nothing^  is  worthy  of  the  name  of  education 
which  does  not  fit  a  man  to  earn  his  bread  rapidly 
ancl  dexterously.  Considering  with  how  large  a 
proportion  of  the  human  race  the  mere  feeding 
and  clothing  of  the  body  is  the  first  and  hardest  of 
tasks,  there  is  nothing  at  all  surprising  in  this 
view.  But  the  preservation  and  growth  of  civiliza- 
tion in  any  country  depends  much  on  the  extent 
to  which  it  is  able  out  of  its  surplus  production  to 
provide  some  at  least  of  its  people  with  the  means 
of  cherishing  and  satisfying  nobler  appetites  than 
hunger  and  thirst.  The  immense  sum  which  is  now 
spent  every  year  on  colleges — misspent  though 
much  of  it  may  be — and  the  increasing  number  of 
students  who  throng  to  them,  regardless  of  the  fact 
that  the  training  they  get  may  make  them  at  first 
feel  a  little  strange  and  helpless  in  the  fierce  strug- 
gle for  meat  and  drink,  show  that  the  increasing 
wealth  of  the  nation  is  accompanied  by  an  increas- 
ing recognition  of  the  fact  that  life,  after  all,  is  not 
all  living,  that  there  are  gains  which  cannot  be  en- 


COMMENCEMENT  ADMONITION  241 

tered  in  any  ledger,  and  that  a  man  may  carry 
about  with  him,  through  a  long  and  it  may  be  out- 
wardly unfortunate  career,  sources  of  pleasure  and 
consolation  which  are  none  the  less  precious  for 
being  unsalable  and  invisible. 
16 


"OKGANS" 

THE  untimely  decease  of  the  Republic,  the  paper 
which  was  set  up  some  months  ago  to  express  in  a 
semi-official  way  the  views  of  the  Administration 
and  its  immediate  adherents  on  public  questions, 
has  a  good  deal  that  is  tragic  about  it,  as  far  as  its 
principal  conductor  is  concerned.  That  a  man  of 
as  much  experience  of  politics  and  of  newspapers 
as  Mr.  Norvell,  the  editor,  had,  should  have  sup- 
posed it  possible  to  start  a  daily  morning  paper  in 
this  city  at  a  time  when  a  successful  daily  is  Avorth 
millions,  and  when  there  are  four  already  in  posses- 
sion of  the  field,  without  any  other  claims  on  popu- 
lar attention  than  its  being  the  mouth-piece  of  the 
leading  politicians  of  the  party  in  power,  and  with  a 
capital  which  in  his  dreams  only  reached  $500,000, 
and  in  fact  only  $40,000,  is  a  curious  though  sad 
illustration  of  the  power  of  the  press  over  the  im- 
agination even  of  persons  long  familiar  with  it. 
The  failure  of  the  enterprise,  however  distressing 
in  some  of  its  aspects,  is  valuable  as  establishing 
more  conspicuously  and  firmly  than  ever  two  facts 


"  ORGANS"  243 

of  considerable  importance  in  relation  to  journal- 
ism. One  is,  that  when  politicians  so  deeply  de- 
sire an  organ  as  to  be  willing  to  set  one  up  for 
the  exclusive  use  of  the  party,  it  is  a  sure  sign  that 
the  party  is  in  serious  danger  of  extinction.  The 
other  is,  that  the  public  mind  is  so  f  ally  made  up 
that  the  position  of  a  newspaper  ought  to  be  a 
judicial  one,  that  all  attempts  to  make  a  paper 
avowedly  partisan  can  only  be  saved  from  commer- 
cial failure  by  large  capital,  extraordinary  ability, 
and  well-established  prestige. 

"  Organs  "  took  their  rise  when  the  sole  use  of  a 
newspaper  was  to  communicate  intelligence,  and 
when  men  in  power  found  it  convenient  to  have  a 
channel  through  which  they  could  let  out  certain 
things  which  they  wished  to  be  spread  abroad. 
Out  of  this  kind  of  relation  to  the  Government  a 
small  paper,  which  did  not  object  to  the  humble 
role  of  a  sort  of  official  gazette,  from  which  the 
earlier  newspapers  indeed  differed  but  little,  could, 
of  course,  always  get  a  livelihood,  and  perhaps  a 
little  of  the  dignity  which  comes  from  having  or 
being  supposed  to  have  state  secrets  to  keep.  But 
the  gradual  addition  to  the  "news-letter"  of  the 
sermon  known  as  a  "  leader  "  or  "  editorial  article  " 
made  the  relation  more  and  more  difficult  and 
finally  impossible.  The  more  pompous,  porten- 
tous, and  prophetic  in  their  character  the  editor's 


244  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

comments  on  public  affairs  became,  the  less  dis- 
posed was  the  public  to  allow  him  to  retain  the  po- 
sition of  a  paid  agent  of  the  State.  It  began  to  feel 
toward  him  as  it  would  have  felt  toward  the  town- 
crier  if  he  had  put  on  a  gown  and  bandstand  insist- 
ed on  accompanying  his  announcement  of  thefts 
and  losses  with  homilies  on  the  vanity  of  life  and 
the  right  use  of  opportunities.  The  editor  had,  in 
short,  to  conduct  his  business  in  a  manner  befit- 
ting his  newly  assumed  duties  as  a  prophet,  and 
to  pretend  at  least  that  his  utterances  were  wholly 
independent  and  were  due  simply  to  a  desire  for 
the  public  good,  as  a  prophet's  ought  to  be.  It  is 
now  very  rare  indeed  that  a  government  is  able  to 
induce  a  well-established  newspaper  of  the  first 
class  to  act  as  its  organ  in  the  proper  sense  of 
that  term,  except  by  working  on  the  vanity  of  ed- 
itors. Almost  all  editors  are  a  little  sensitive 
about  the  imputation  of  being  mere  commentators 
or  critics,  and  a  little  desirous  of  being  thought 
"  practical  men,"  by  those  engaged  in  the  actual 
working  of  political  machinery.  The  "old  editor" 
in  this  country  in  fact  preferred  to  be  thought  a 
working  politician,  and  liked  to  use  his  paper  as  a 
piece  of  political  machinery  for  producing  solid 
party  gains,  and  in  this  way  to  be  received  into 
the  circle  of  "  workers  "  and  "  managers  "  as  one 
of  themselves  ;  and  to  retain  this  position  he  was 


"  OJZGAXS"  245 

always  willing  to  "  write  up  "  any  view  they  sug- 
gested. His  successor,  though  he  cares  less  about 
being  "  a  worker,"  and  is  able  to  secure  the  attend- 
ance of  politicians  at  his  office  without  running 
after  them,  is,  nevertheless,  more  or  less  flattered 
by  the  confidences  of  men  in  power,  and  it  often 
takes  only  a  small  amount  of  these  confidences  to 
make  him  surrender  the  judicial  position  and  ac- 
cept that  of  an  advocate,  and  stand  by  them  through 
thick  and  thin.  But  no  leading  journal  has  ever 
tried  this  position  in  our  day  very  long  without 
being  forced  out  of  it  by  the  demand  of  the  public 
for  impartiality  and  the  consequent  difficulty  of 
avoiding  giving  offence  in  official  quarters.  Every 
administration  does  things  either  through  its  chief 
or  subordinates  which  will  not  Sear  defence,  and 
which  its  judicious  friends  prefer  to  pass  over  in 
silence^— Bui  a  journalist  cannot  keep  silent.  TJnf 
Government  mayrequire  him  to  hold  his  tongue, 
T5uTthe  reader  demands  that  he  shall  speak ;  and 
as  the  public  supplies  the  sinews  of  war^and  pa^s 
for  the  prophet's  robes,  he  is  sooner  or  later^  com- 
pelled to  break  with  the  Government  and  to  re- 
proach  it  for  not  listening  to  the  advice  of  its  friends 
in  time. 

J$Ioreover,  in  a  country  in  which  the  press  is  free 
and  newspapers  abound,  a  party  which  contains  a 
majority  of  the  people  cannot  fail  to  have  the  sup- 


24G  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

port  of  a  large  and  influential  portion  of  the  press. 
Its  conductors,  though  prophets,  do  not  wear 
camel's  hair,  nor  is  their  diet  locusts  and  wild 
honey.  They  form  part  of  the  community,  live 
among  the  voters,  and  share,  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent,  their  prejudices  and  expectations  and 
sympathies.  Every  party,  therefore,  is  sure,  as  long 
as  it  has  a  strong  hold  on  the  public,  of  having  a 
strong  hold  on  the  press,  and  of  having  a  consider- 
able number  of  the  most  influential  editors  among 
its  defenders.  One  of  the  sure  signs  that  it  is 
losing  its  hold  on  the  public  is  the  defection  of  the 
press  or  its  growing  lukewarnmess.  Newspapers 
cannot,  perhaps,  build  a  party  up  or  pull  one  down, 
but  when  you  see  the  newspapers  deserting  a  party 
it  is  all  but  proof  that  the  agencies  which  dissolve 
a  political  organization  are  at  work.  The  success- 
ful editors  may  have  no  originating  power  or  no 
organizing  power,  and  no  capacity  for  legisla- 
tion, and  may  even  want  the  prophetic  instinct ; 
but  a  certain  intuitive  sense  of  the  direction  in 
which  the  tide  of  popular  feeling  is  running  is  the 
principal  condition  of  their  success,  and  an  anxious 
politician  may  therefore  always  safely  credit  them 
with  possessing  it.  If  they  had  not  had  it,  their 
papers  would  not  have  succeeded. 

If  the  incident  or  its  lessons  should   result  in 
establishing  better  relations  between  political  men 


"  ORGANS"  247 

and  the  press,  the  sacrifice  of  the  unfortunate  pro- 
jector of  the  Republic  will,  however,  be  a  small  price 
to  pay  for  a  great  gain.  We  do  not,  as  our  readers 
know,  set  up  to  be  champions  of  the  press,  and 
have  certainly  never  shown  any  disposition  to 
underrate  its  defects  or  shortcomings.  But  there 
is  one  thing  which  no  candid  and  careful  observer 
can  avoid  seeing,  and  that  is  that  the  press  of 
the  country,  as  an  instrument  of  discussion  and 
popular  education,  has  undergone  within  twenty 
years  an  improvement  nothing  analogous  to  which 
is  to  be  found  in  the  class  of  politicians.  The 
newspapers  are  now,  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases 
in  all  our  leading  cities,  conducted  by  men  who 
are  familiar  with  the  leading  ideas  of  our  time  and 
with  the  latest  advances  in  science  and  the  art,  in- 
cluding the  art  of  government,  and  who  write  under 
the  influence  of  these  ideas  and  these  advances, 
and  who  have  consequently  got  a  standard  of 
efficiency  in  legislative  administration  which  has 
not  yet  made  its  way  into  the  political  class. 
The  result  is  that,  after  making  all  possible  al- 
lowance for  the  carelessness  and  recklessness 
and  dishonesty  of  reporters,  and  the  personal 
biases  and  enmities  of  editors,  the  men  who  car- 
ry on  the  Government,  excepting  a  few  experts, 
have  become  objects  of  criticism  on  the  part  of 
the  daily  press,  the  depreciatory  tone  of  which 


248  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

is  not  wholly  unjustifiable  or  unnatural,  and  pol- 
iticians repay  this  contempt  with  a  hatred  which 
is  none  the  less  fierce  for  having  no  adequate  means 
of  expression. 


EVIDENCE  ABOUT   CHARACTER 

THERE  has  been  during  the  week  a  loud  and  in- 
creasing demand  for  the  application  of  the  legal 
process  of  discovering  truth  to  the  Tilton-Beecher 
case.  People  ask  that  it  be  earned  into  court,  not 
only  because  all  witnesses  might  thus  be  com- 
pelled to  appear  and  testify,  but  because  apparent- 
ly there  is,  in  the  minds  of  many,  a  peculiar  virtue 
in  "  the  rules  of  evidence  "  used  by  lawyers.  Wit- 
nesses examined  under  these  rules  are  supposed 
to  receive  from  them  a  strong  stimulus  in  veracity 
and  explicitness,  while  they  at  once  expose  prevar- 
ication or  concealment.  One  newspaper  eulogist 
went  so  far  the  other  day  as  to  pronounce  the 
rules  the  product  of  the  wisdom  of  all  ages,  begin- 
ning with  the  Phoenicians  and  coming  down  to 
our  own  time.  There  is,  however,  only  one  good 
reason  that  we  know  of  for  carrying  any  attack  on 
character  into  court,  and  that  is  the  obvious  one, 
that  the  courts  only  can  compel  those  who  are 
supposed  to  know  anything  about  a  matter  of  liti- 
gation to  appear  and  state  it.  But  we  do  not  know 


250  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

of  any  other  advantage  which  can  be  claimed  for  a 
trial  in  court,  in  such  a  case,  over  a  trial  before  a 
well-selected  lay  tribunal.  "  The  rules  of  evidence  " 
in  use  in  our  courts  are  not,  as  too  many  persons 
seem  to  suppose,  deductions  from  the  constitution 
of  the  human  mind,  or,  in  other  words,  natural 
rules  for  the  discovery  of  truth  under  all  conditions. 
On  the  contrary,  they  are  a  system  of  artificial 
presumptions  created  for  the  use  of  a  tribunal  of 
a  somewhat  low  order  of  intelligence,  and  are  in- 
tended to  produce  certain  well-defined  and  limited 
results,  which  the  law  considers  generally  bene- 
ficial. They  have,  that  is  to  say,  grown  up  for  the 
use  of  the  jury.  The  large  number  of  exclusions 
which  they  contain  are  due  simply  to  a  desire  to 
prevent  jurymen's  being  confused  by  kinds  of  tes- 
timony which  they  are  not  supposed  to  have  learn- 
ing or  acumen  enough  to  weigh.  If  anyone  will 
go  into  the  City  Hall  and  listen  to  the  trial  of  even 
a  trifling  cause,  he  will  find  that  the  proceedings 
consist  largely  in  the  attempt  of  one  lawyer  to 
have  certain  facts  laid  before  the  jury  and  the  at- 
tempts of  the  other  to  prevent  it,  the  judge  sitting 
as  arbiter  between  them  and  applying  the  rules  of 
admission  and  exclusion  to  each  of  these  facts  as  it 
comes  up.  If  he  examines,  too,  in  each  instance 
what  it  is  that  is  thus  pertinaciously  offered  and 
pertinaciously  opposed,  he  will  find  that  it  almost 


EVIDENCE  ABOUT  CHARACTER  251 

invariably  has  something  to  do  with  the  controversy 
before  the  court — it  may  be  near  or  more  re- 
mote— but  still  something.  Consequently  it  has, 
logically,  a  certain  bearing  on  the  case,  or  is,  under 
the  constitution  of  the  human  mind,  proper  evi- 
dence. When  the  judge  says  it  is  irrelevant,  he 
does  not  mean  that  it  is  logically  irrelevant ;  he 
means  that  it  has  been  declared  irrelevant  on  certain 
grounds  of  expediency  by  the  system  of  jurispru- 
dence which  he  administers.  He  refuses  to  let  it  go 
to  the  jury  because  he  thinks  it  would  befog  them 
or  turn  their  attention  away  from  the  "  legal  issue  ' 
or,  in  other  words,  from  the  one  little  point  on 
which  the  law  compels  the  plaintiff  and  defendant 
to  concentrate  their  dispute,  in  order  to  render  it 
triable  at  all  by  the  peculiar  tribunal  which  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race  has  chosen  for  the  protection  of 
its  rights.  * 

It  follows  that  our  rules  of  evidence  are  un- 
known on  the  European  continent  and  in  every 
country  in  which  courts  are  composed  of  judges 
only — that  is,  of  men  with  special  training  and 
capacity  for  the  work  of  weighing  testimony — or  in 
which  the  legal  customs  have  been  created  by  such 
courts.  There  the  litigants  follow  the  natural 
order,  and  cany  with  them  before  the  bench  every- 
thing that  has  any  relation  to  the  case  whatever, 
and  leave  the  court  to  examine  it  and  allow  it  its 


253  'REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

proper  force.  Our  own  changes  in  the  law  of  evi- 
dence are  all  in  this  direction.  The  amount  of  ex- 
cluded testimony — that  is,  of  testimony  with  which 
we  are  afraid  to  trust  the  jury — has  been  greatly 
diminished  during  the  last  few  years,  and,  consid- 
ering the  growth  of  popular  intelligence,  properly 
diminished.  The  tendency  of  legislation  now  is 
toward  letting  the  jury  hear  everybody — the  plain- 
tiff and  defendant,  the  prisoner,  the  wife,  the  hus- 
band, and  the  witness  with  a  pecuniary  interest  in 
the  result  of  the  trial — and  put  its  own  estimate 
on  what  the  testimony  amounts  to.  But  neverthe- 
less, even  now,  who  is  there  that  has  ever  watched 
the  preparation  of  a  cause  for  trial  who  has  not 
listenened  to  lamentations  over  the  difficulty  or 
impossibility  of  getting  this  or  that  important  fact 
before  the  jury,  or  has  not  witnessed  elaborate 
precautions,  on  one  side  'or  another,  to  prevent 
some  fact  from  getting  before  the  jury  ?  The  skill 
of  a  counsel  in  examining  or  cross-examining  a 
witness,  for  instance,  is  shown  almost  as  much  by 
what  he  avoids  bringing  out  as  by  what  he  brings 
out,  and  no  witness  is  allowed  to  volunteer  any 
statement  lest  he  should  tell  something  which, 
however  pertinent  in  reality,  the  rules  pronounce 
inadmissible. 

Now,  rules  of  this  kind  are  singularly  unsuited 
to  the  conduct  of  inquiries  touching  character.     It 


EVIDENCE  ABOUT  CHARACTER  253 

is  true  the  law  provides  a  process  nominally  for 
the  vindication  of  character,  called  an  action  for 
libel,  but  the  remedy  it  supplies  is  not  a  vindica- 
tion properly  so  called,  but  a  sum  of  money  as  a 
kind  of  penalty  on  the  libeller,  not  for  having 
assailed  you,  but  for  not  having  been  able  to  prove 
his  case  under  the  rules  of  evidence.  In  a  suit  for 
libel,  too,  the  parties  fight  their  battle  in  the  strict 
legal  order  —  the  plaintiff,  that  is  to  say,  stands 
by  and  challenges  the  defendant  to  produce  his 
proofs,  and  then  fights  bitterly  through  his  counsel 
to  keep  out  as  much  of  the  proof  as  he  can.  He 
supplies  no  evidence  himself  that  is  not  strictly 
called  for,  and  proffers  no  explanation  that  does 
not  seem  necessary  to  procure  an  award  of  pecun- 
iary damages,  and  takes  all  the  pains  possible  to 
bring  confusing  influences  to  bear  on  the  jury. 
When  we  consider,  too,  that  the  jury  is  composed 
of  men  who  may  be  said  to  be  literally  called  in 
from  the  street,  without  the  slightest  regard  to 
their  special  qualifications  for  the  conduct  of  any 
inquiry,  and  that  they  are  apt  to  represent  popular 
passions  and  prejudices  in  all  conspicuous  .  and 
exciting  cases,  we  easily  see  why  a  trial  by  a  jury, 
under  the  common-law  rules  of  evidence,  is  not 
the  process  through  which  a  high-minded  man 
who  sought  not  for  "  damages,"  but  to  keep  his 
reputation  absolutely  spotless  in  the  estimation 


254  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

of  his  neighbors,  would  naturally  seek  his  vindica- 
tion. 

It  cannot  be  too  often  said,  in  these  times  when 
great  reputations  are  so  often  assailed  and  so  often 
perish,  that  nobody  who  has  not  deliberately  chosen 
the  life  of  a  stoical  recluse  is  justified  either  in  re- 
fusing to  defend  his  reputation  or  in  defending  it 
by  technical  processes  if  any  others  are  within  his 
reach.  It  is,  of  course,  open  to  any  man  to  say 
that  he  cares  nothing  for  the  opinion  of  man- 
kind, and  will  not  take  the  trouble  to  influence  it 
in  any  manner  in  regard  to  himself.  But,  if  he 
says  so,  he  is  bound  not  to  identify  with  himself, 
in  any  manner,  either  great  „  interests  or  great 
causes.  If  he  makes  hinteelf  the  champion  of 
other  people's  rights,  jor  the  exponent  of  impor- 
tant principles,  or  has  through  any  power  of  his 
achieved  an  influence  over  other  people's  minds 
sufficiently  great  to  make  it  appear  that  certain 
doctrines  or  ideas  must  stand  or  fall  by  him,  he 
has  surrendered  his  freedom  in  all  that  regards  the 
maintenance  of  his  fame. 

It  is  no  longer  his  only  to  maintain.  It  has 
become,  as  it  were,  embodied  in  popular  morality, 
been  made  the  basis  of  popular  hopes,  and  a  test 
under  which  popular  faith  or  approval  is  bestowed 
on  a  great  variety  of  ways  and  means  of  living. 
Such  a  man  is  bound  to  defend  himself  from  the. 


EVIDENCE  ABOUT  CHARACTER  255 

instant  at  which  he  finds  the  assaults  on  him  begin 
to  tell  on  the  public  conception  of  his  character. 
Dignified  reserve  is  a  luxury  in  which  it  is  not 
permitted  to  him  to  indulge ;  and  when  he  comes 
to  defend  himself,  it  must  not  be  with  the  calculat- 
ing shrewdness  of  the  strategist  or  tactician.  The 
only  rules  of  evidence  of  which  he  can  claim  the 
benefit  are  the  laws  of  the  human  mind.  The 
tribunal,  too,  before  which  he  seeks  reparation 
should  not  be  what  the  state  supplies  only,  but  the 
very  best  he  can  reach,  and  it  should,  if  possible, 
be  composed  of  men  with  no  motive  for  saving 
him  and  with  no  reason  for  hating  him,  and  with 
such  training  and  experience  as  may  best  fit  them 
for  the  task  of  weighing  his  enemy's  charges  and 
his  own  excuses  and  explanations.  His  course 
before  such  a  tribunal,  too,  should  be  marked  by 
ardor  rather  than  by  prudence.  He  should  chafe 
under  delay,  clamor  for  investigation,  and  invite 
scrutiny,  and  put  away  from  him  all  advisers 
whose  experience  is  likely  to  incline  them  to  chi- 
cane or  make  them  satisfied  with  a  technical  vic- 
tory. .Such  men  are  always  dangerous  in  delicate 
cases.  He  should  not  wait  for  his  accuser  to  get 
in  all  his  case  if  the  substantial  part  of  it  is 
already  before  the  court,  because  his  answer  ought 
not,  as  in  a  court  of  law,  to  cover  the  complaint 
simply  and  no  more.  It  ought  to  contain  a  plain 


256  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

unvarnished  tale  of  the  whole  transaction,  and  not 
those  parts  only  which  the  accusation  may  have 
touched,  because  his  object  is  not  only  to  wrest  a 
verdict  of  "  not  proven  "  from  his  judges,  but  to 
satisfy  even  the  timid  and  sensitive  souls  whose 
faith  in  their  idols  is  so  large  a  part  of  their  moral 
life,  not  only  that  he  is  not  guilty,  but  that  he 
never  even  inclined  toward  guilt. 


PHYSICAL  FORCE  IN  POLITICS 

THE  late  discussion  on  the  possibility  or  expedi- 
ency of  maintaining  governments  at  the  South 
which  had  no  physical  force  at  their  disposal  has 
not  failed  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  friends 
of  woman  suffrage.  They  see  readily  wrhat,  in- 
deed, most  outsiders  have  seen  all  along,  that  the 
failure  of  the  numerical  majority  in  certain  South- 
ern States  to  hold  the  power  to  which  the  law  en- 
titled them  simply  because  they  were  unable  or 
unwilling  to  fight,  has  a  very  important  bearing 
on  the  fitness  of  women  to  participate  in  the  prac- 
tical work  of  government,  and  a  well-known  writer, 
"  T.  W.  H.,"  in  a  late  number  of  the  Woman  s 
Journal,  endeavors  to  show  that  what  has  hap- 
pened at  the  South  is  full  of  encouragement  for 
the  woman  suffragists.  His  argument  is  in  sub- 
stance this :  You  (the  opponents)  have  always 
maintained  as  the  great  objection  to  the  admission 
of  women  to  the  franchise,  that  if  women  voted, 
cases  might  arise  in  which  the  physical  force  of 
the  community  would  be  in  the  hands  of  one  party 
17 


258  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

and  the  legal  authority  in  those  of  the  other,  and 
we  should  then  witness  the  great  scandal  of  a 
majority  government  unable  to  execute  the  laws. 
We  have  just  seen  at  the  South,  however,  that  the 
possession  of  physical  force  is  not  always  suf- 
ficient to  put  the  majority  even  of  the  male  voters 
in  possession  of  the  Government.  In  South  Caro- 
lina and  Louisiana  the  Government  has  been  seized 
and  successfully  held  by  a  minority,  in  virtue  of 
their  greater  intelligence  and  self-confidence.  To 
use  his  own  language  : 

"  The  present  result  in  South  Carolina  is  not  a 
triumph  of  bodily  strength  over  weakness,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  of  brains  over  bodily  strength.  And 
however  this  reasoning  affects  the  condition  of 
South  Carolina  —which  is  not  here  my  immediate 
question — it  certainly  affects,  in  a  very  important 
degree,  the  argument  for  woman  suffrage.  If  the 
ultimate  source  of  political  power  is  muscle,  as  is 
often  maintained,  then  woman  suffrage  is  illogical ; 
but  if  the  ultimate  source  of  political  power  is,  as 
the  Nation  implies,  '  the  intelligence,  sagacity,  and 
the  social  and  political  experience  of  the  popula- 
tion,' then  the  claims  of  women  are  not  impaired. 
For  we  rest  our  case  on  the  ground  that  women 
equal  men  on  these  points,  except  in  regard  to  po- 
litical experience,  which  is  a  thing  only  to  be  ac- 
quired by  practice. 


PHYSICAL  FORGE  IN  POLITICS  259 

"  So  the  showing  of  the  Nation  is,  on  the  whole, 
favorable  to  women.  It  looks  in  the  direction  of 
Mr.  Bagehot's  theory,  that  brains  now  outweigh 
muscle  in  government.  Just  in  proportion  as 
man  becomes  civilized  and  comes  to  recognize 
laws  as  habitually  binding,  does  the  power  of 
mere  brute  force  weaken.  In  a  savage  state  the 
ruler  of  a  people  must  be  physically  as  well  as 
mentally  the  strongest ;  in  a  civilized  state  the 
Commander-in-chief  may  be  physically  the  weakest 
person  in  the  army.  The  English  military  power 
is  no  less  powerful  for  obeying  the  orders  of  a 
queen.  The  experience  of  South  Carolina  does 
not  vindicate,  but  refutes,  the  theory  that  muscle 
is  the  ruling  power.  It  shows  that  an  educated 
minority  is  more  than  a  match  for  an  ignorant 
majority,  even  though  this  be  physically  stronger. 
Whether  this  forbodes  good  or  evil  to  South  Caro- 
lina is  not  now  the  question  ;  but  so  far  as  woman 
suffrage  is  concerned,  the  moral  is  rather  in  its 
favor  than  against  it." 

What  is  singular  in  all  this  is,  that  the  writer 
is  evidently  under  the  impression  that  the  term 
"  physical  force  "  in  politics  means  muscle,  or,  to 
put  the  matter  plainly,  that  the  fact  that  the  South 
Carolina  negroes,  who  unquestionably  surpass  the 
whites  in  lifting  power,  could  not  hold  their  own 
against  them,  shows  that  government  has  become 


360  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

a  mere  question  of  brains,  and  that  as  women  have 
plenty  of  brains,  though  they  can  lift  very  little, 
they  could  perfectly  well  carry  on,  or  help  to  cany 
on,  a  government  which  has  only  moral  force  on 
its  side. 

Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  has  been  no  re- 
cent change  in  the  meaning  attached  to  "  physical 
force  "  in  political  nomenclature.  It  does  not  mean 
muscle  or  weight  now,  as  we  see  in  South  Caro- 
lina; and  it  has  never  meant  muscle  or  weight 
since  the  dawn  of  civilization.  The  races  and  na- 
tions which  have  made  civilization  and  ruled  the 
world  have  done  so  by  virtue  of  their  possessing 
the  very  superiority,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree, 
which  the  Carolina  whites  have  shown  in  their  late 
struggle  with  the  blacks.  The  Greeks,  the  Ko- 
mans,  the  Turks,  the  English,  the  French,  and  the 
Germans  have  all  succeeded  in  government — that 
is,  in  seizing  and  keeping  power — not  through 
superiority  of  physical  force  which  consists  in 
muscle,  but  through  the  superiority  which  con- 
sists in  the  ability  to  organize  and  bring  into  the 
field,  and  reinforce  large  bodies  of  men,  with  the 
resolution  to  kill  and  be  killed  in  order  to  have 
their  own  way  in  disputes.  No  matter  how  much 
intelligence  a  people  may  have,  unless  they  are 
able  and  willing  to  apply  their  intelligence  to  the 
art  of  war,  and  have  the  personal  courage  necessary 


PHYSICAL  FORCE  IN  POLITICS  361 

to  carry  out  in  action  the  plans  of  their  leaders, 
they  cannot  succeed  in  politics.  Brains  are  nec"es- 
sary  for  political  success,  without  doubt,  but  it 
must  be  brains  applied,  among  other  things  to  the 
organization  of  physical  force  in  fleets  and  armies. 
An  "educated  minority,"  as  such,  is  no  more  a 
match  for  a  "  physically  stronger  ignorant  major- 
ity "  than  a  delicate  minister  for  a  pugilist  in  "  con- 
dition," unless  it  can  furnish  well-equipped  and 
well-led  troops.  The  Greeks  were  better  educated 
than  the  Bomans,  but  this  did  not  help  them.  The 
Romans  of  the  Empire  were  vastly  more  intelligent 
and  thoughtful  than  the  Barbarians,  but  they  could 
not  save  the  Empire.  The  Italians  of  the  Middle 
Ages  were  the  superiors  of  the  French  and  Ger- 
mans in  every  branch  of  culture,  and  yet  this  did 
not  prevent  Italy  being  made  the  shuttlecock  of 
northern  politicians  and  free-booters.  The  French 
overran  Germany  in  the  beginning  of  the  present 
century,  and  the  Germans  have  overrun  France 
within  the  last  ten  years,  not  in  either  case  owing 
to  superiority  in  lifting  or  boxing,  or  in  literary 
"  culture,"  but  to  superiority  in  the  art  of  fighting — 
that  is,  of  bringing  together  large  bodies  of  armed 
men  who  will  not  flinch,  and  will  advance  when 
ordered  on  the  battle-field. 

It  is  skill  in  this  art  which  is  meant  by  the 
term  "  physical  force "  in  politics,  and  it  is  this 


262  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

physical  force  which  lies  behind  all  successful 
government.  The  superiority  of  the  North  in 
numbers,  wealth,  machinery,  literature,  and  com- 
mon schools  would  have  profited  it  nothing,  and 
the  American  Republic  would  have  disappeared 
from  the  map  if  it  had  not  been  possible,  thirty 
years  ago,  to  apply  a  vast  amount  of  intelligence 
to  the  purposes  of  destruction,  and  to  find  large 
numbers  of  men  willing  to  fight  under  orders.  In 
quiet  times,  under  a  government  in  which  the  nu- 
merical majority  and  the  intelligence  and  property 
of  the  community  are  on  the  same  side,  and  take 
substantially  the  same  views  of  public  polity,  and 
the  display  of  coercive  force,  except  for  ordinary 
police  purposes,  is  not  called  for,  we  not  unnatu- 
rally slide  readily  into  the  pleasant  belief  that  gov- 
ernment is  purely  a  moral  agency,  and  that  people 
obey  the  law  through  admiration  of  intellectual 
power  and  the  dread  of  being  "  cornered  "  in  argu- 
ment, or  of  being  exposed  as  selfish  or  lawless. 

Such  occurrences  as  the  late  civil  war  and  the 
recent  deadlock  at  the  South  are  very  useful  in  un- 
covering the  secret  springs  of  society,  and  remind- 
ing people  of  the  tremendous  uncertainties  and 
responsibilities  by  which  national  as  well  as  indi- 
vidual life  is  surrounded,  reminding  the  voter,  in 
short,  that  he  may  not  always  be  able  to  discharge 
his  duty  to  the  country  by  depositing  his  ballot  in 


PHYSICAL  FORCE  IN  POLITICS  363 

the  box ;  that  he  may  have  to  make  the  result  sure 
by  putting  everything  he  values  in  the  world  at 
stake.  The  poor  negroes  in  South  Carolina  have 
not  been  deposed  simply  because  they  are  igno- 
rant ;  the  Russian  peasants  who  fought  at  Borodino 
were  grossly  ignorant.  How  many  of  the  Eng- 
lish hinds  who  stood  rooted  in  the  soil  at  Water- 
loo could  read  and  write  ?  The  Carolinian  major- 
ity failed  because  it  did  not  contain  men  willing 
to  fight,  or  leaders  capable  of  organization  for 
military  purposes,  or,  in  other  words,  did  not  pos- 
sess what  has  since  the  dawn  of  civilization  been 
the  first  and  greatest  title  to  political  power.  The 
Carolinian  minority  did  not  drive  their  opponents 
out  of  the  offices  by  simply  offering  the  spectacle 
of  superior  intelligence  of  self-confidence,  but  by 
the  creation  of  a  moral  certainty  that,  if  driven  to 
extremities,  they  would  outdo  the  Republicans  in 
the  marshalling,  marching,  provisioning,  and  ma- 
noeuvring of  riflemen. 

If  this  be  true,  it  will  be  readily  seen  that  the 
lesson  of  the  South  Carolina  troubles,  far  from 
containing  encouragement  for  the  friends  of  female 
suffrage,  is  full  of  doubt  and  difficulty.  Those 
who  believe  that  women  voters  would  constitute  a 
new  and  valuable  force  in  politics  must  recognize 
the  possibility  that  they  would  at  some  time  or 
other  constitute  the  bulk  of  a  majority  claiming 


364  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

the  government,  and  they  must  also  recognize  the 
probability  that  the  male  portion  of  this  majority 
would  be  composed  of  the  milder  and  less  energet- 
ic class  of  men,  people  with  much  brains  and  but 
little  physical  courage,  ready  to  go  to  the  stake  for 
a  conviction,  but  not  ready  to  shoulder  a  musket 
or  assault  a  redoubt.  If  under  these  circumstances 
the  minority,  composed  exclusively  of  men,  infe- 
rior if  you  will,  to  the  majority  in  the  purity  of 
their  motives,  the  breadth  of  their  culture,  and  in 
capacity  for  drawing  constitutions  and  laws  and 
administering  charities,  should  refuse  to  obey  the 
majority,  and  should  say  that  its  government  was 
a  ridiculous  "  fancy  "  government,  administered  by 
crackbrained  people,  and  likely  to  endanger  prop- 
erty and  the  public  credit,  and  that  it  must  be 
abolished,  what  would  the  women  and  their  "  gen- 
tlemen friends"  do?  They  would  doubtless  re- 
monstrate with  the  recusants  and  show  them  the 
wickedness  of  their  course,  but  then  the  recusants 
would  be  no  more  moved  by  this  than  Wade 
Hampton  and  his  people  by  Mr.  Chamberlain's 
eloquent  and  affecting  inaugural  address.  They 
would  tell  the  ladies  that  their  intelligence  was 
doubtless  of  a  high  order,  and  their  aims  noble, 
but  that  as  they  were  apparently  unable  to  supply 
policemen  to  arrest  the  persons  who  disobeyed 
their  laws,  their  administration  was  a  farce  and  its 


PHYSICAL  FORCE  IN  POLITICS  265 

disappearance  called  for  in  the  interest  of  public 
safety.  Accordingly  it  would  be  removed  to  the 
great  garret  of  history,  to  lie  side  by  side  with  in- 
numerable other  disused  plans  for  human  improve- 
ment. 

The  cause  of  much  of  the  misconception  about 
the  part  played  by  physical  force  in  modern  so- 
ciety now  current  in  reformatory  circles  is  doubt- 
less to  be  found  in  the  disappearance  of  sporadic 
and  lawless  displays  of  it,  such  as,  down  to  a  very 
recent  period,  seriously  disturbed  even  the  most 
civilized  communities.  The  change  that  has  taken 
place,  however,  consists  not  in  the  total  disuse  of 
force  as  a  social  agency,  but  in  the  absorption  of  all 
force  by  the  government,  making  it  so  plainly  ir- 
resistible that  the  occasions  are  rare  when  anything 
approaching  to  organized  resistance  or  defiance  of 
it  is  attempted.  When  it  lays  its  commands  on  a 
man  he  knows  that  obedience  will,  if  necessary,  be 
enforced  by  an  agency  of  such  tremendous  power 
that  he  does  not  think  of  revolt.  But  it  is  not  the 
high  intelligence  of  those  who  carry  it  on  that  he 
bows  to  ;  it  is  to  their  ability  to  crush  him  like  an 
egg-shell.  Of  course,  it  is  not  surprising  that  his 
submissiveness  should  at  meetings  of  philanthro- 
pists be  ascribed  to  the  establishment  of  a  consen- 
sus between  his  mind  and  the  mind  of  the  law- 
giver, or  in  other  words,  the  subjection  of  society 


266  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

to  purely  moral  influences  ;  but  it  is  perhaps  well 
that  complications  like  those  of  South  Carolina 
should  now  and  then  occur  to  infuse  sobriety  into 
speculation  and  explain  the  machinery  of  civiliza- 
tion. 


"COUET  CIKCLES" 

THE  passionate  excitement  created  in  Canada 
by  the  arrival  of  a  daughter  of  the  Queen,  and  the 
prospect  of  the  establishment  of  "  a  court "  in  Ot- 
tawa which  will  have  the  appearance  of  a  real  court 
— that  is,  a  court  with  blood  royal  in  it,  instead  of 
a  court  held  merely  by  the  Queen's  legal  repre- 
sentatives— is  a  phenomenon  of  considerable  in- 
terest. It  affords  a  fresh  illustration  of  that 
growth  of  reverence  for  royalty  which  all  the  best 
observers  agree  has  for  the  last  forty  years  been 
going  on  in  England,  side  by  side  with  the  growth 
of  democratic  feeling  and  opinion  in  politics — that 
is,  the  sovereign  has  more  than  gained  as  a  social 
personage  what  she  has  lost  as  a  political  person- 
age. The  less  she  has  had  to  do  with  the  govern- 
ment the  more  her  drawing  -  rooms  have  been 
crowded,  and  the  more  eager  have  people  become 
for  personal  .marks  of  her  favor. 

The  reason  of  this  is  not  far  to  seek.  It  lies 
in  the  enormous  increase  during  that  period  in 
the  size  of  the  class  which  is  not  engaged  in 


368  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

that,  to  the  heralds,  accursed  thing — trade,  and  has 
money  enough  to  bear  the  expense  of  "a  presen- 
tation," and  of  living  or  trying  to  live  afterward 
in  the  circle  of  those  who  might  be  invited  to 
court,  or  might  meet  the  Prince  of  Wales  at  din- 
ner. The  accumulation  of  fortunes  since  the 
Queen's  accession  has  been  very  great,  and  they 
have,  however  made,  come  into  possession  now 
of  a  generation  which  has  never  been  engaged  in 
any  occupation  frowned  on  by  the  Lord  Cham- 
berlain, and  which  owns  estates,  or  at  all  events 
possesses  all  outward  marks  of  gentility,  when  it 
has  been  received  by  the  Queen,  and  has  got  into 
Burke's  Dictionary  at  the  end  of  an  interesting 
though  perhaps  apocryphal  genealogy.  This  re- 
ception is  the  crown  of  life's  struggle,  a  sort  of 
certificate  that  the  hero  or  heroine  of  it  is  fit  com- 
pany for  anybody  in  the  world.  It  is,  in  fact,  a 
social  graduation.  When  you  get  somebody  who 
is  himself  a  graduate  to  agree  to  present  you,  and 
the  Lord  Chamberlain,  after  examining  your  card, 
makes  no  objection  to  you,  he  virtually  furnishes 
you  with  a  sort  of  diploma  which  guarantees  you 
against  what  may  be  called  authorized  snubs. 
People  may  afterward  decline  your  invitations  on 
the  ground  that  they  do  not  like  you,  or  that  your 
entertainments  bore  them,  but  not  on  the  ground 
that  your  social  position  is  inferior  to  their  own. 


"COURT  CIRCLES"  269 

That  the  struggle  for  this  diploma  in  a  wealthy 
aiid  large  society  should  be  great  and  increasing  is 
nothing  wonderful.  The  desire  for  it  among  the 
women  especially,  to  whose  charge  the  creation 
and  preservation  of  "  position  "  are  mainly  com- 
mitted, is  very  deep.  It  inflames  their  imagina- 
tion in  a  way  which  makes  husbands  ready  for 
anything  in  order  to  get  it,  and  in  fact  makes  it 
indispensable  to  their  peace  of  mind  and  body 
that  they  should  get  it  as  soon  as  their  pecuniary 
fortune  seems  to  put  it  within  their  reach.  Since 
the  Queen  ascended  the  throne  the  population  has 
risen  from  20,000,000  to  35,000,000,  and  the  num- 
ber of  great  fortunes  and  presentable  people  has 
increased  in  a  still  greater  ratio,  and  the  pressure 
on  the  court  has  grown  correspondingly ;  but  there 
remains  after  all  only  one  court  to  gratify  the 
swarm  of  new  applicants.  The  colonies,  too,  have 
of  late  years  contributed  largely  to  swell  the  tide. 
Every  year  London  society  and  the  ranks  of  the 
landed  gentry  are  reinforced  by  returned  Austra- 
lians and  New  Zealanders  and  Cape-of-Good- 
Hopers  and  China  and  India  merchants,  who  feel 
that  their  hard  labors  and  long  exile  have  left  life 
empty  and  joyless  until  they  see  the  names  of  their 
wives  and  daughters  in  the  Gazette  among  the 
presentations  at  a  drawing-room  or  levee. 

In  the  colonies,  and  especially  in  Canada,  where 


270  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

there  is  so  little  in  the  local  life  to  gratify  the 
imagination,  the  court  shines  with  a  splendor  which 
the  distance  only  intensifies.  To  a  certain  class 
of  Canadians,  who  enjoy  more  frequent  oppor- 
tunities than  the  inhabitants  of  the  other  great 
colonies  of  renewing  or  fortifying  their  love  of  the 
competition  of  English  social  life,  and  of  the  marks 
of  success  in  it,  the  court,  as  the  fountain  of  honor, 
apart  from  all  political  significance,  is  an  object  of 
almost  fierce  interest.  In  England  itself  the  signs 
of  social  distinction  are  not  so  much  prized.  This 
kind  of  Canadian  is,  in  fact,  apt  to  be  rather  more 
of  an  Englishman  than  the  Englishman  himself  in 
all  these  things.  He  imitates  and  cultivates  English 
usages  with  a  passion  which  takes  no  account  of 
the  restrictions  of  time  or  place.  It  is  "  the  thing  " 
too  in  Canadian  society,  as  in  the  American  colony 
in  Paris,  to  be  much  disgusted  by  the  "  low  Amer- 
icans "  who  invade  the  Dominion  in  summer,  and 
to  feel  that  even  the  swells  of  New  York  and  Bos- 
ton could  achieve  much  improvement  in  their  man- 
ners by  faithful  observation  of  the  doings  in  the 
Toronto  and  Ottawa  drawing-rooms. 

As  far  as  admiration  of  courts  and  a  deep  de- 
sire for  court-life  and  a  belief  in  the  saving  grace 
of  contact  with  royalty  can  go,  therefore,  there  are 
Canadians  fully  prepared  for  the  establishment  of 
a  court  "  in  their  midst."  The  society  of  the  prov- 


"COURT  CIRCLES"  271 

ince  was,  in  fact,  in  an  imflammable  eagerness  to 
kiss  bands,  and  back  out  from  the  presence  of 
royalty,  and  perform  the  various  exercises  pertain- 
ing to  admission  to  court  circles,  and  in  a  proper 
state  of  Jingo  distrust  of  the  wicked  Czar  and  his 
minions — which  in  the  Colonies  is  now  one  of  the 
marks  of  gentility— when  the  magician,  Lord  Bea- 
consfield,  determined  to  apply  the  match  to  it  by 
sending  out  a  real  princess.  In  spite  of  his  con- 
tempt for  the  "  flat-nosed  Franks,"  however,  he 
can  hardly  have  been  prepared  for  the  response 
which  he  elicited.  He  cannot  have  designed  to 
make  monarchy  and  royalty  seem  ridiculous,  and 
yet  the  articles  and  addresses  and  ceremonies  with 
which  the  new  Governor-General  and  his  wife 
have  been  received  look  as  if  the  Minister  had  de- 
termined, before  he  died,  to  have  the  best  laugh  of 
his  farcical  career  over  the  barbarians  who  have 
called  him  in  to  rule  over  them.  A  court  is  a  very 
delicate  thing,  and  a  strong  capacity  for  enjoying 
it  does  not  of  itself  make  good  courtiers.  In  Eng- 
land the  reasons  which  prevent  a  man's  being  re- 
ceived at  court — such  as  active  prosecution  of  the 
dry -goods  business — are  a  thousand  years  old  ;  in 
fact,  they  may  be  said  to  have  come  down  from 
the  ancient  world  along  with  the  Roman  law. 
They  have,  therefore,  a  certain  natural  fitness  and 
force  in  the  eyes  of  the  natives  of  that  country. 


272  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

That  is,  it  seems  to  "  stand  to  reason "  that  a 
trader  should  not  go  to  court.  Moreover,  they  can 
be  enforced  in  England  and  still  leave  an  abundant 
supply  of  spotless  persons  for  the  purposes  of 
court  society.  The  court-line  is  drawn  along  an 
existing  and  well-marked  social  division. 

In  Canada  this  preparation  for  court  gayeties 
does  not  exist.  If  the  persons  soiled  by  commerce 
were  to  be  excluded  from  the  princess's  presence, 
she  would  lead  a  lonely  and  dismal  life,  and  the 
court  would  be  substantially  a  failure.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  court  is  to  be  made  up  exclusive- 
ly of  rich  traders,  it  will  not  only  excite  the  fiercest 
jealousies  and  bitterness  among  those  who  are 
excluded,  but  it  will  be  very  difficult  to  provide  a 
rule  for  passing  on  claims  for  presentation  wrhen 
once  the  line  of  official  position  is  passed.  But,  it 
may  be  said,  why  not  throw  all  restrictions  aside 
and  admit  everybody,  as  at  White  House  recep- 
tions ?  Nobody  will  ask  this  question  who  has 
mastered  even  the  rudiments  of  royalty,  and  we 
shall  not  take  the  trouble  of  answering  it  fully. 
We  are  now  discussing  the  question  for  the  benefit 
of  persons  of  some  degree  of  knowledge.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  any  laxity  of  practice  at  Ottawa 
would  do  a  good  deal  of  damage  to  the  monarchi- 
cal principle  itself,  which,  as  Mr.  Bagehot  has 
pointed  out,  owes  much  of  its  force  and  perma- 


"COURT  CIRCLES"  273 

nence  even  in  England  to  its  hold  on  the  imagina- 
tion. The  princess  cannot  go  back  to  England 
receiving  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry  in  Canada  with- 
out a  certain  loss  of  prestige  both  for  herself  and 
her  house. 

Not  the  least  curious  feature  of  the  crisis  is  the 
interest  the  prospect  of  a  Canadian  court  has  ex- 
cited in  this  country.  Our  newspapers  know  what 
they  are  about  when  they  give  whole  pages  to  ac- 
counts of  the  voyage  and  the  reception,  including 
a  history  of  the  House  of  Argyll  and  a  brief  sketch 
of  the  feelings  of  Captain  the  Duke  of  Edinburgh, 
now  on  the  Halifax  Station,  over  his  approaching 
meeting  with  his  sister.  They  recognize  the  ex- 
istence of  a  deep  and  abiding  curiosity,  at  least 
among  the  women  of  our  country,  about  all  that 
relates  to  royalty  and  its  doings,  in  spite  of  the 
labor  expended  for  nearly  a  century  by  orators 
and  editors  in  showing  up  the  vanity  and  hollow- 
ness  of  monarchical  distinctions.  In  fact,  if  the 
secrets  of  American  hearts  could  be  revealed,  we 
fear  it  would  be  found  that  the  materials  for  about 
a  million  of  each  order  of  nobility,  from  dukes 
down,  exist  among  us  under  quiet  republican  ex- 
teriors, and  that  if  a  court  circle  were  set  up  among 
us  no  earthly  power  could  prevent  its  assuming 
unnatural  and  unmanageable  proportions.  A 
prince  like  the  late  Emperor  Maximilian,  whose 
18 


274  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

purse  was  meagre  but  whose  connection  with  a 
reigning  house  was  unquestioned  and  close,  might 
find  worse  ways  of  repairing  his  fortune  than  set- 
ting up  an  amateur  court  in  some  of  the  Atlantic 
cities  and  charging  a  moderate  fee  for  presen- 
tation, and  drawing  the  line  judiciously  so  as  to 
keep  up  the  distinction  without  damaging  his 
revenues.  To  prevent  cutting  remarks  on  the 
members  of  the  circle,  however,  and  too  much  ridi- 
cule of  the  whole  enterprise,  he  would  have  to  give 
the  editors  high  places  about  his  person,  and  pro- 
vide offices  for  the  reporters  in  his  basement.  If 
the  scheme  were  well  organized  and  did  not  at- 
tempt too  much,  its  value  in  settling  people's 
"  position,"  and  in  giving  the  worthy  their  proper 
place  without  the  prolonged  struggles  they  now 
have  sometimes  to  undergo,  would  be  very  great, 
and  it  would  enable  foreign  students  of  our  institu- 
tions to  pursue  successfully  certain  lines  of  inquiry 
into  our  manners  and  customs  in  which  they  are 
now  too  often  baffled. 


LIVING  IN  EUKOPE  AND  GOING  TO  IT 

EVERY  year  a  great  deal  of  discussion  of  the  best 
mode  of  spending  the  summer,  and  the  course  of 
the  people  who  go  to  Europe,  instead  of  submit- 
ting to  the  discomfort  and  extortion  of  American 
hotels,  is  for  the  most  part  greatly  commended. 
The  story  told  about  the  hotels  and  lodging-houses 
is  the  same  every  year.  The  food  is  bad,  the  rooms 
uncomfortable,  and  the  charges  high.  The  fash- 
ion, except  perhaps  at  Newport  and  Beverly,  near 
Boston,  Bar  Harbor,  and  one  or  two  other  highly 
favored  localities,  grows  stronger  and  stronger,  to 
live  in  the  city  in  the  winter  and  spend  the  three 
hot  months  in  France  or  England  or  Switzerland. 
Moreover,  the  accounts  which  come  from  Europe 
of  the  increase  in  the  number  of  American  colo- 
nists now  to  be  found  in  every  attractive  town  of 
the  Continent  are  not  exactly  alarming,  but  they 
are  sufficient  to  set  people  thinking.  The  number 
of  those  who  pass  long  years  in  Europe,  educate 
their  children  there,  and  retain  little  connection 
with  America  beyond  drawing  their  dividends, 


276  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

grows  steadily,  and  as  a  general  rule  they  are  per- 
sons whose  minds  or  manners  or  influence  makes 
their  prolonged  absence  a  sensible  loss  to  our 
civilization.  Moreover,  when  they  come  back, 
they  find  it  difficult  to  stay,  and  staying  is  not 
made  easy  for  them.  People  here  are  a  little  sus- 
picious of  them,  and  are  apt  to  fancy  that  they 
have  got  out  of  sympathy  with  American  institu- 
tions, and  have  grown  too  critical  for  the  rough 
processes  by  which  the  work  of  life  in  America  has 
in  a  large  degree  to  be  done.  They  themselves, 
on  the  other  hand,  besides  being  soured  by  the 
coldness  of  their  reception,  are  apt  to  be  disgusted 
by  the  want  of  finish  of  all  their  surroundings,  by 
the  difficulty  with  which  the  commoner  and  coarser 
needs  are  met  in  this  country,  and  by  the  reluc- 
tance with  which  allowance  is  made  by  legislation 
and  opinion  for  the  gratification  of  unusual  or  un- 
popular tastes. 

The  result  is  a  breach,  which  is  already  wide, 
and  tends  to  widen,  between  the  class  which  is 
hard  at  work  making  its  fortune  and  the  class 
which  has  either  made  its  fortune  or  has  got  all  it 
desires,  which  is  the  same  thing  as  a  fortune. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  work  which  this  latter 
would  like  to  do.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  the 
work  of  legislation  and  administration  and  educa- 
tion for  which  it  is  eminently  fitted,  but  in  which, 


LIVING  IN  EUROPE  AND   GOING   TO  IT         277 

nevertheless,  it  has  littlejor  no_chance  of  sharing, 
owing  to  the  loss  of  the  art  of  winning  the  confi- 

^ ^"^^  ^^^t^MMkMHMH^HM^^MBH^vi— 

denge  of  others,  and  working  with  others,  which  is 
more  easily  learned  in  America  than  elsewhere,  and 
which  is  readily  lost  by  prolonged  residence  in  any 
European  country,  and  the  absence  of  which  here 
makes  all  other  gif ts_f or  practical  jjurposes"  almost 
worthless.  So  that  it  must  be  said  that  the 
amount  of  intellectual  and  aesthetic  culture  which 
an  American  acquires  in  Europe  is  somewhat 
dearly  purchased.  When  he  gets  home,  he  is  apt 
to  find  it  a  useless  possession,  as  far  as  the  world 
without  is  concerned,  unless  he  is  lucky  enough,  as 
sometimes  but  not  often  happens,  to  drop  into 
some  absorbing  occupation  or  to  lose  his  fortune. 
Failing  this,  he  begins  that  melancholy  process  of 
vibration  between  the  two  continents  in  which  an 
increasingly  large  number  of  persons  pass  a  great 
part  of  their  lives,  their  hearts  and  affections 
being  wholly  in  neither. 

The  remedy  for  the  mania  for  living  abroad  is  an 
elaborate  one,  and  one  needing  more  time  for  its 
creation.  No  country  retains  the  hearty  affection 
of  its  educated  class  which  does  not  feed  its  imagi- 
nation. The  more  we  cultivate  men,  the  higher 
their  ideals  grow  in  all  directions,  political  and 
social,  and  they  like  best  the  places  in  which  these 
ideals  are  most  satisfied.  The  long  and  varied 


278  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

history  of  older  countries  offers  their  citizens  a 
series  of  pictures  which  stimulate  patriotism  in  the 
highest  degree ;  and  it  will  generally  be  found  that 
the  patriotism  and  love  of  home  of  the  cultivated 
class  is  in  the  ratio  of  the  supply  of  this  kind  of 
food.  They  are  languid  among  the  Russians,  and 
among  the  Germans  prior  to  the  late  war,  as  com- 
pared to  the  English  and  French.  In  default  of 
a  long  history,  however,  historic  incidents  are  apt 
to  lose  their  power  on  the  imagination  through 
over-use.  The  jocose  view  of  Washington  and  of 
the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  of  Bunker  Hill  and  of  the 
Fourth  of  July,  already  gains  ground  rapidly 
among  us,  through  too  great  familiarity.  When 
Professor  Tyndall,  in  one  of  his  lectures  here,  made 
an  allusion  which  he  meant  to  be  solemn  and  im- 
pressive, to  Plymouth  Rock,  its  triteness  drew  a 
titter  from  the  audience  which  for  a  moment  con- 
founded him.  , 

Unluckily,  history  cannot  be  made  to  order. 
It  is  the  product  of  ages.  The  proper  substi- 
tute for  it,  as  well  as  for  the  spectacular  effects  of 
monarchy,  in  new  democratic  societies,  is  per- 
fection. There  is  no  way  in  which  we  can  here 
kindle  the  imaginations  of  the  large  body  of  men 
and  women  to  whom  we  are  every  year  giving  an 
increasingly  high  education  so  well  as  by  finish  in 
the  things  we  undertake  to  do.  Nothing  does  so 


LIVING  IN  EUROPE  AND   GOING   TO  IT         279 

much  to  produce  despondency  about  the  republic, 
or  alienation  from  republican  institutions,  among 
the  young  of  the  present  day,  as  the  condition  of 
the  civil  service,  the  poor  working  of  the  post- 
office  and  the  treasury  or  the  courts,  or  the  help- 
lessness of  legislators  in  dealing  with  the  ordinary 
every-day  problems.  The  largeness  of  the  country, 
and  the  rapidity  of  its  growth,  and  the  compara- 
tively low  condition  of  foreign  nations  in  respect 
to  freedom,  which  roused  people  in  Fourth-of-  July 
orations  forty  years  ago,  have,  like  the  historical 
reminiscences,  lost  their  magic,  and  the  material 
prosperity  is  now  associated  in  people's  minds  with 
so  much  moral  corruption  that  the  mention  of  it 
produces  in  some  of  the  best  of  us  a  feeling  not 
far  removed  from  nausea.  Nothing  will  do  so 
much  now  to  rouse  the  old  enthusiasm  as  the 
spectacle  of  the  pure  working  of  our  administra- 
tive machinery,  of  able  and  independent  judges, 
a  learned  and  upright  bar,  a  respectable  and  pu- 
rified custom  -  house,  an  enlightened  and  effi- 
cient treasury,  and  a  painstaking  post-office.  The 
colleges  of  the  country  and  the  railroads,  and  in- 
deed everything  that  depends  on  private  enterprise, 
are  rapidly  becoming  objects  of  pride  ;  but  a  good 
deal  needs  to  be  done  by  the  government  to  pre- 
vent its  being  a  source  of  shame. 

Mrs.  Stevenson,  a  Philadelphia  lady,  the  presi- 


380 

dent  of  the  Civic  Club  in  that  city,  delivered  an 
address  to  the  club  some  weeks  ago  on  its  work  of 
reform,  in  which  we  find  the  following  passage  : 

"  There  seems  to  exist  a  mysterious,  unwritten 
law  governing  the  social  organism  which  causes  a 
natural  and  wholesome  reaction  to  take  place  when- 
ever tendencies,  perhaps  inherent  in  certain 
classes,  threaten  to  become  general,  and  thereby 
dangerous  to  the  community.  A  few  years  ago, 
for  instance,  with  the  increasing  facilities  for  for- 
eign travel,  and  the  corresponding  increase  of  in- 
ternational intercourse,  Anglomania  had  become  so 
much  in  vogue  as  to  form  an  incipient  danger  to 
the  true  democratic  American  spirit  that  consti- 
tutes the  real  strength  of  our  nation.  It  was  fast 
becoming  a  national  habit  to  extol  everything  Eu- 
ropean— from  monarchy  and  its  aristocratic  insti- 
tutions down  to  the  humblest  article  of  dress  or  of 
household  use — to  the  detriment  of  everything 
American ;  and  from  the  upper  '  four  hundred ' 
this  habit  was  fast  extending  to  the  upper  forty 
thousand.  But  just  as  our  wealthy  classes  were 
beginning  to  make  themselves  positively  ridiculous 
abroad,  and  almost  intolerable  at  home,  a  reaction 
set  in,  and  upon  all  sides  there  sprang  up  patriotic 
associations  of  a  social  order — '  Sons  and  Daugh- 
ters of  the  Revolution,'  '  Colonial  Dames,'  etc.— 
which  revived  proper  American  self-respect  among 


LIVING  IN  EUROPE  AND   GOING   TO  IT         281 

our  people  by  teaching  us  to  rest  our  pride,  if 
pride  we  must  have,  where  it  legitimately  should 
rest — upon  good  service  rendered  to  our  own  coun- 
try."  ^ 

This  seems  to  be  a  shaft  aimed  at  the  practice 
of  "  going  to  Europe,"  for  the  decline  of  "  the  true 
American  spirit "  and  the  growth  of  Anglomania 
are  ascribed  to  the  "  increasing  facilities  for  foreign 
travel "  and  "  the  corresponding  increase  of  inter- 
national intercourse."  If  the  charge  be  true,  it  is 
one  of  the  most  afflicting  ever  made,  because  it 
shows  that  "the  true  democratic  American  spirit" 
suffers  from  what  the  world  has  hitherto  consid- 
ered one  of  the  greatest  triumphs  of  modern 
science,  and  one  of  the  greatest  blessings  conferred 
on  the  race — the  enormous  improvement  in  oceanic 
steam  navigation ;  that,  in  fact,  American  patriot- 
ism is  very  much  like  the  Catholic  faith  in  the 
Middle  Ages — something  naturally  hostile  to  prog- 
ress in  the  arts. 

If,  too,  the  practice  of  going  to  Europe  be  dan- 
gerous to  American  faith  and  morals,  the  number 
of  those  who  go  makes  it  of  immense  importance. 
There  is  probably  no  American  who  has  risen 
above  very  narrow  circumstances  who  does  not  go 
to  Europe  at  least  once  in  his  life.  There  is 
hardly  a  village  in  the  country  in  which  the  man 
who  has  succeeded  in  trade  or  commerce  does  not 


282  REFLECTIONS  ANV  COMMENTS 

announce  his  success  to  liis  neighbors  by  a  trip  to 
Europe  for  himself  and  his  family.  There  is 
hardly  a  professor,  or  teacher,  or  clergyman,  or 
artist,  or  author  who  does  not  save  out  of  a  sal- 
ary, however  small,  in  order  to  make  the  voyage. 
Tired  professional  or  business  men  make  it  con- 
stantly, under  the  pretence  that  it  is  the  only  way 
they  can  get  "  a  real  holiday."  Journalists  make 
it  as  the  only  way  of  getting  out  of  their  heads 
such  disgusting  topics  as  Croker  and  Gilroy,  and 
Hill  and  Murphy.  Eich  people  make  it  every 
year,  or  oftener,  through  mere  restlessness.  We 
are  now  leaving  out  of  account,  of  course,  immi- 
grants born  in  the  Old  World,  who  go  back  to  see 
their  friends.  We  are  talking  of  native  Ameri- 
cans. Of  course,  all  native  Americans  cannot  go, 
because,  even  when  they  can  afford  it,  they  cannot 
always  get  the  time.  But  we  venture  on  the  prop- 
osition that  there  is  hardly  any  American  "in 
this  broad  land,"  as  members  of  Congress  say, 
who,  having  both  time  and  money,  has  not  gone  to 
Europe,  or  does  not  mean  to  go  some  day  or  other. 
So  that,  if  Mrs.  Stevenson's  account  of  the  moral 
effects  of  the  voyage  were  true,  it  would  show  that 
the  very  best  portion  of  our  population,  the  most 
moral,  the  most  religious,  and  the  most  educated 
were  constantly  exposing  themselves  by  tens  of 
thousands  to  most  debasing  influences. 


LIVING  IN  EUROPE  AND   GOING   TO  IT         283 

But  is  it  true  ?  We  think  not.  Americans  who 
go  to  Europe  with  some  knowledge  of  history,  of 
the  fine  arts,  and  of  literature,  all  recognize  the 
fact  that  they  could  not  have  completed  their  edu- 
cation without  going.  To  such  people  travel  in 
Europe  is  one  of  the  purest  and  most  elevating  of 
pleasures,  for  Europe  contains  the  experience  of 
mankind  in  nearly  every  field  of  human  endeavor. 
They  often,  it  is  true,  come  back  discontented  with 
America,  but  out  of  this  discontent  have  grown 
some  of  our  most  valuable  improvements — libraries, 
museums,  art-galleries,  colleges.  What  they  have 
seen  in  Europe  has  opened  their  eyes  to  the  possi- 
bilities and  shortcomings  of  their  own  country. 
To  take  a  familiar  example,  it  is  travel  in  Europe 
which  has  done  most  to  stimulate  the  movement 
for  municipal  reform.  It  is  seeing  London  and 
Paris,  and  Berlin  and  Birmingham,  which  has  done 
most  to  wake  people  up  to  the  horrors  of-the 
Croker-Gilroy  rule,  and  inflame  the  determination 
to  end  it  as  a  national  disgrace.  The  class  of 
Americans  who  do  not  come  back  discontented  are 
usually  those  who  had  no  education  to  start  with. 

"  Knowledge  to  their  eyes  her  ample  page, 
Rich  with  the  spoils  of  time,  did  ne'er  unroll ! " 

So,   even    when    standing   on   the    Acropolis    at 
Athens  or  in  the  Tribuna  at  Florence,  they  feel 


284  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

themselves  sadly  "  out  of  it."  They  think  long- 
ingly of  Billy  or  Jimmy,  and  the  coffee  and  cakes 
of  their  far  Missouri  or  Arkansas  home,  and  come 
back  cursing  Europe  and  its  contents.  No  dam- 
age is  ever  done  by  foreign  travel  to  the  "  true 
democratic  American  spirit "  of  this  class. 

And  now  as  to  "  Anglomania,"  a  subject  to  be 
handled  with  as  much  delicacy  as  an  anarchist 
bomb.  Anglomania  in  one  form  or  other  is  to  be 
met  with  in  all  countries,  especially  France  and 
Germany,  and  has  shown  itself  here  and  there  all 
over  the  Continent  ever  since  the  peace  of  1815. 
The  things  in  which  it  most  imitates  the  English 
are  riding,  driving,  men's  clothes,  sports  in  general, 
and  domestic  comfort.  The  reason  is  that  the  Eng- 
lish have  for  two  centuries  given  more  attention 
to  these  things  than  any  other  people.  No  other 
has  so  cultivated  the  horse  for  pleasure  purposes. 
No  other  has  devoted  so  much  thought  and  money 
to  suitability  in  dress  and  to  field  sports.  No 
other  has  brought  to  such  perfection  the  art  of  liv- 
ing in  country  houses.  In  all  these  things  people 
who  can  afford  it  try  to  imitate  them.  We  say, 
with  a  full  consciousness  of  the  responsibility 
which  the  avowal  entails  on  us,  that  they  do  right. 
It  is  well  in  any  art  to  watch  and  imitate  the  man 
who  has  best  succeeded  in  it.  The  sluggard  has 
been  exhorted  even  to  imitate  the  ant,  and  anyone 


LIVING  IN  EUROPE  AND   GOING   TO  IT         285 
t 

who  wishes  to  ride  or  drive  well,  or  dress  appro- 
priately, or  entertain  in  a  country  house,  ought  to 
study  the  way  the  English  do  these  things,  and 
follow  their  example,  for  anything  worth  doing 
ought  to  be  done  well.  It  is  mostly  in  these 
things  that  Anglomania  consists. 

Mrs.  Stevenson,  we  fear,  exaggerates  greatly  the 
number  of  Anglomaniacs.  A  few  dozen  are  as 
many  as  are  to  be  found  in  any  country,  and  any 
government  or  polity  which  their  presence  puts 
in  peril  ouglit  to  be  overthrown,  for  assuredly  it  is 
rotten  to  the  core.  There  is  nothing,  in  fact, 
better  calculated  to  make  Americans  hang  their 
heads  for  shame  than  the  list  of  small  things 
which  one  hears  from  "  good  Americans,"  put  our 
institutions  in  danger.  We  remember  a  good  old 
publisher,  in  the  days  before  international  copy- 
right, who  thought  we  could  not  much  longer 
stand  the  circulation  of  British  novels.  Their 
ideas,  he  said,  were  dangerous  to  a  republic.  An 
Auglomaniac  can  hardly  turn  up  his  trousers  on 
Fifth  Avenue  without  eliciting  shrieks  of  alarm 
from  the  American  patriot.  And  yet  a  more 
harmless  creature  really  does  not  exist. 

These  matters  are  worth  notice  because  we  are 
the  only  great  nation  in  the  world  whom  people 
try  to  preach  into  patriotism.  The  natives  of 
other  countries  love  their  country  simply,  naturally, 


286  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

and  for  the  most  part  silently,  as  they  love  their 
mothers  and  their  wives.  But  to  get  an  American 
to  do  so  he  has,  one  would  think,  to  be  followed 
about  by  a  preacher  with  a  big  stick  exhorting 
him  to  be  a  "  good  American,"  or  he  will  catch  it. 
But  nobody  was  ever  preached  into  love  of  country. 
He  may  be  preached  into  sacrifices  in  its  behalf,  but 
the  springs  of  love  cannot  be  got  at  by  any  system 
of  persuasion.  No  man  will  love  his  country  un- 
less he  feels  it  to  be  lovable ;  and  it  is  to  making 
it  lovable  that  the  exertions  of  those  who  have 
American  patriotism  in  charge  should  be  devoted. 
Every  Good  American  may  take  comfort  in  the 
fact  that  very  few  people  indeed  of  any  social  or 
political  value  who  have  once  lived  in  America 
ever  want  again  to  live  in  Europe,  unless  they  go 
for  purposes  of  study  or  education.  For  there  is 
no  question  that  there  is  no  country  in  the  world 
in  which  the  atmosphere  is  so  friendly,  and  in 
which  one  is  so  sure  of  sympathy  in  misfortune,  of 
acceptance  on  his  own  merits  independently  of 
birth  or  money,  and  has  so  many  opportunities  of 
escape  from  the  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous 
fortune,  as  America.  These  are  the  things  which, 
after  all,  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases,  win  and 
hold  the  human  heart ;  and  a  country  which  has 
them  can  well  afford  to  let  its  citizens  travel,  and 
even  let  some  of  them  "  be  early  English  if  they  can." 


CABLYLE'S   POLITICAL  INFLUENCE 

THE  numerous  articles  called  forth  by  Carlyle's 
"  Reminiscences,"  both  in  this  country  and  in  Eng- 
land, while  varying  greatly  in  the  proportions  in 
which  they  mix  their  praise  and  blame,  leave  no 
doubt  that  there  has  occurred  a  very  strong  re- 
vulsion of  feeling  about  him,  so  strong  in  England 
that  we  are  told  that  the  subscriptions  for  a  pro- 
posed memorial  to  him  have  almost  if  not  entirely 
ceased.  The  censure  which  Carlyle's  friends  are 
visiting  on  Mr.  Froude  for  his  indiscretion  in 
printing  the  book,  though  deserved,  has  done  but 
little  to  mitigate  the  severity  of  the  judgment 
passed  on  the  writer  himself.  In  fact,  we  are  in- 
clined to  believe  that  Mr.  Froude's  want  of  judg- 
ment rather  helps  to  deepen  the  surprise  and 
disappointment  with  which  the  book  has  been  re- 
ceived, as  affording  an  additional  proof  of  the 
feebleness  of  Carlyle's  own  powers  in  estimating 
the  people  about  him.  That,  after  heaping  con- 
tempt on  so  many  of  whom  the  world  has  been  ac- 
customed to  think  highly,  he  should  have  retained 


288  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

to  the  last  his  confidence  in,  and  respect  for,  a  per- 
son capable  of  dealing  his  fame  such  a  deadly 
blow  as  Mr.  Froude,  not  unnaturally  increases  the 
irritation  with  which  the  public  has  read  his  rec- 
ollections of  his  friends  and  contemporaries. 
The  "  disillusion  and  disenchantment "  worked  by 
the  book,  in  so  far  as  it  affects  Carlyle's  fame  as 
a  prophet,  is,  of  course,  a  misfortune,  and  a  very 
serious  one.  What  it  was  he  preached  when  his 
preaching  first  startled  the  world,  but  very  few 
now  undertake  to  say,  and  these  few  by  no  means 
agree  in  their  story.  His  influence,  apparently, 
was  not  of  the  kind  which  reaches  a  man  through 
articulate  speech,  but  rather  that  which  comes 
through  the  blast  of  a  trumpet  or  the  marching 
tune  of  a  good  band,  and  fills  the  heart  with  a 
feeling  of  capacity  for  high  endeavor,  though  one 
cannot  say  in  what  particular  field  it  is  to  be  dis- 
played. But  though  he  founded  no  school  and 
taught  no  system  of  morals,  his  eminence  as  a 
mere  preacher  was  one  of  the  very  valuable  posses- 
sions of  the  Anglo-Saxon  world,  as  a  sort  of  stand- 
ing protest  against  the  materialistic  tendencies  of 
the  age  ;  and  this  eminence  rested  a  good  deal  on 
the  popular  conception  of  the  elevation  of  his  own 
character.  This  conception  has  undoubtedly, 
whether  justly  or  unjustly,  been  greatly  shaken, 
if  not  destroyed,  by  the  revelation  that  invidious 


CARLYLE'S  POLITICAL  INFLUENCE  289 

comparison  between  bimself  and  others  was  al^ 
most  ajiabit  of  his  life  ;  that.  wJiile  preaching  jja^ 
tient  endurance,  he  did  not  himself  endure  patiently 
even  the  minor  ills  of  existence  :  that,  when  look- 
ing at  the  fine  equipages  at  Hyde  Park  Corner, 
he  had  to  support  himself  by  "  sternly  thinking  " 
— "  yes,  and  perhaps  none  of  you  could  do  what  I 
am  at ; "  that  his  mental  attitude  during  the  prep- 
aration of  most  of  his  books  was  that  of  a  man 
not  properly  appreciated  who  was  going  to  cast 
pearls  before  swine;  or,  in  other  words,  the  atti- 
tude of-  an  ordinary  literary  man  burdened  with 
too  much  vanity  for^  his  powers,  and  more  con- 
cerned  about  the  effect  his  work  was  likely  to 
have  on  his  personal  fortunes  than  on  the  mental 
or  moral  condition  of  the  world.  While  full  of 
contempt  for  sciolists  and  pretenders  and  news- 
papers, he  wrote,  and  was  ready  to  write,  on  the 
American  war  without  any  knowledge  of  the  facts, 
and  scorned  Darwinism  without  ever  bestowing 
a  thought  on  it.  Carlyle's  public  were  long  ago 
conscious,  as  one  of  his  critics  has  said,  that  he 
.cjmted_j3rpdigiously  about  cant,  and  talked  volu- 
minously in  praise  of  silence ;  but  then  it  recog- 
nized that  much  repetitionhas  always  the  air  of 
cant,  and  that  to  persuade  men  to  be  silent,  as  well 
as  to  do  anything  else,  one  must  talk  a  great  deal. 
A  prophet  has  to  be  diffuse  and  loud,  and  often 
19 


290  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

shrill,  and  his  disciples  will  always  forgive  any 
number  of  mistakes  in  method  or  manner  as  long 
as  they  believe  that  behind  the  preaching  there  is 
perfect  simplicity  and  self-forgetfulness.  That 
this  belief  has  been  weakened  in  many  minds  with 
regard  to  Carlyleby  the  "  Reminiscences  "  there  is 
no  question,  and  the  consequence  of  it  is  that  the 
Anglo  Saxon  world  has  lost  one  of  its  best  pos- 
sessions ;  and  it  is  a  kind  of  possession  which  no 
apologies  or  explanations,  and  no  proof  of  Mr. 
Fronde's  indiscretion,  can  restore. 

There  is,  however,  some  compensation  in  the 
catastrophe.  If  there  was  nothing  positive  in  Car- 
lyle's  moral  teachings,  if  nobody  could  extract 
from  his  earlier  utterances  anything  more  definite 
than  advice  to  "  be  up  and  doing  with  a  heart  for 
every  fate,"  there  was  in  the  political  teachings  of 
his  later  works  something  very  positive  and  defi- 
nite, and  something  which  he  managed  to  surround 
with  some  of  the  diviner  light  of  his  first  arraign- 
ments of  modern  civilization.  There  is,  for  in- 
stance, nothing  in  literature  more  ingenious  than  the 
way  in  which  he  presents  Cromwell  as  the  apostle  of 
"  truth  "  during  the  campaigns  in  Ireland  after  the 
death  of  the  King.  He  lets  slip  no  opportunity  of 
setting  forth  the  importance  of  those  military  oper- 
ations as  a  means  of  bringing  "  truth  "  to  the  Irish, 
so  much  so  that  the  reader  at  last  begins  to  ex- 


CARLYLE'S  POLITICAL  INFLUENCE  391 

pecfc  the  revelation  of  some  formula  in  which  the 
Lord-General  presented  the  truth  to  them.  But 
long  before  the  end  is  reached  one  finds  that  the 
only  truth  which  Cromwell  was  spreading  in  Ire- 
land was  the  simple  one  that  anybody  who  re- 
sisted him  in  arms  would  probably  be  knocked  on 
the  head.  This  collocation  of  truth  and  superior- 
ity of  physical  force,  and  of  falsehood  and  weak- 
ness, was,  in  fact,  worked  into  all  Carlyle's  writ- 
ings of  a  political  character,  and  did,  through  his 
writings,  become  a  very  positive  political  influence 
after  the  generation  which  was  roused  by  the  first 
blasts  of  his  moral  trumpet  had  grown  old,  or  had 
passed  away.  To  most  men  under  fifty,  in  fact, 
Carlyle  is  more  known  as  a  very  truculent  political 
philosopher  than  as  a  moralist,  and  most  of  his 
later  imitators — Mr.  Froude  for  one — have  imi- 
tated him  rather  in  preparing  the  way  of  the 
Strong  Man  in  government,  and  recommending  the 
helpless  and  forlorn  to  strip  for  a  salutary  dozen 
on  the  bare  back,  than  in  preaching  self-knowledge 
or  the  inner  worship  of  the  "  veracities." 

That  the  effect  of  this  on  English  politics  has 
been  bad,  and  very  bad,  during  the  past  thirty 
years  few  will  deny.  It  beyond  question  has  had 
an  evil  influence  on  English  opinion  both  about 
Ireland  and  about  India,  and  about  the  civil  war 
in  the  United  States.  It  had  much  to  do  with 


292  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

the  production  of  that  great  scandal,  the  defence 
of  Governor  Eyre,  by  nearly  the  whole  of  London 
society.  Nay,  we  think  we  are  not  far  wrong  in 
saying  that  it  did  much  to  prepare  the  way  for 
that  remarkable  episode  in  English  history,  the 
late  administration  of  Lord  Beaconsfield,  with  its 
jingo  fever ;  its  lavish  waste  of  blood  and  treasure ; 
its  ferocious  assertion  of  the  beauty  of  national 
selfishness ;  its  contempt  for  all  that  portion  of  the 
population  of  Turkey  which  was  weak  and  subject 
and  unhappy.  When  one  contrasts  the  spirit  in 
which  John  Stuart  Mill  approached  all  such  sub- 
jects in  his  day,  his  patient  pursuit  of  the  facts, 
his  almost  over-earnest  efforts  to  get  at  the  point 
of  view  of  those  who  differed  with  him,  his  steady 
indifference  to  his  own  fame  in  dealing  with  all 
public  questions,  and  then  reads  the  contemptu- 
ous way  in  which  Carlyle  disposes  of  him  in  the 
"Reminiscences,"  one  gets,  we  were  going  to  say, 
an  almost  painful  sense  of  the  contrast  between 
the  influence  of  the  two  men  on  their  day  and  gen- 
eration. 

In  so  far  as  the  "  Eemiuiscences,"  therefore, 
ruin  Carlyle  as  a  politician,  their  publication  must 
be  considered  a  gain  for  the  English  race.  The 
particular  political  vice  hisjnfluence  fostered,  that 
nobody  who  cannot  thrash  you  in  fight  is"  wbrtE 
listening  to,  Is,  it  must  be  said,  a  vice  peculiar  to 


CAULYLE'S  POLITICAL   INFLUENCE  293 

the  English  race.  It  is  only  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
forum  that  a  man  of  foreign  birth  and  unfamiliar 
ways  of  thinking  has  to  obtain  a  locus  standi  by 
making  himself  an  object  of  physical  terror.  The 
story  which  has  lately  gone  the  rounds  of  the 
papers,  of  Carlyle's  discussion  with  some  Irish- 
man who  got  the  better  of  him  in  an  argument  in 
support  of  the  logical  right  of  the  Irish  to  manage 
their  own  affairs,  in  which  he  met  his  opponent  in 
the  last  resort  in  half-humorous  vehemence  by  in- 
forming him  that  he  would  cut  his  throat  before  he 
would  let  him  have  his  independence,  is  not  a  bad 
expression  of  the  spirit  which  has  governed  Eng- 
lish policy  in  dealing  with  dependent  communi- 
ties. There  is  a  certain  wisdom  and  justice  in 
exacting  from  every  malcontent  who  asks  for  great 
changes  in  his  condition  some  strong  proof  of  his 
earnestness ;  but  it  is  a  test  which  has  to  be  ap^ 
plied  with  great  discretion,  which  nations  that 
have  made  a  great  fortune  with  a  strong  right  hand 
are  not  likely  to  apply  with  discretion,  and  which 
is  apt  to  make  weakness  seem  ridiculous  as  well  as 
contemptible.  The  history  of  English  politics  for 
fifty  years  at  least  has  been  the  history  of  the  ef- 
forts of  the  nation  to  accustom  itself  to  some  other 
than  the  English  standard  of  political  respectabil- 
ity, to  familiarize  itself  with  the  idea  that  pacific 
people,  and  poor  people,  and  queer  people  had 


294  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

something  to  say  for  themselves,  and  were  entitled 
to  a  place  in  the  world.  To  the  success  of  that 
effort  it  is  safe  to  say  that  Mr.  Carlyle's  political 
writings  have  been  more  or  less  of  an  obstacle, 
and  that  the  destruction  of  his  influence  will  con- 
tribute something  to  the  solution  of  some  of  the 
more  serious  pending  problems  of  English  politics. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SUMMER 
RESORT 

NOTHING  is  more  remarkable  in  the  history  of 
American  summering  than  the  number  of  new  re- 
sorts which  are  discovered  and  taken  possession  of 
by  "  the  city  people  "  every  year,  the  rapid  increase 
in  the  means  of  transportation  both  to  the  moun- 
tains and  the  sea,  and  the  steady  encroachments  of 
the  cottager  on  the  boarder  in  all  the  more  desir- 
able resorts.  The  growth  of  the  American  watering- 
place,  indeed,  now  seems  to  be  as  much  regulated 
by  law  as  the  growth  of  asparagus  or  strawberries, 
and  is  almost  as  easy  to  foretell.  The  place  is 
usually  first  discovered  by  artists  in  search  of 
sketches,  or  by  a  family  of  small  means  in  search 
of  pure  air,  and  milk  fresh  from  the  cow,  and 
liberty — not  to  say  license — in  the  matter  of  dress. 
Its  development  then  begins  by  some  neighboring 
farmer's  agreeing  to  take  them  to  board — a  thing 
he  has  never  done  before,  and  does  now  unwill- 
ingly, and  he  is  very  uncertain  what  to  charge 
for  it.  But  at  a  venture  he  fixes  what  seems  to  him 
an  enormous  sum — say  $5  to  $7  a  week  for  each 


296  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

adult.  His  ideas  about  food  for  city  people  are, 
however,  very  vague.  The  only  thing  about  their 
tastes  of  which  he  feels  certain  is  that  what  they 
seek  in  the  country  is,  above  all  things,  change, 
and  that  they  accordingly  do  not  desire  what  they 
get  at  home.  Accordingly  he  furnishes  them  with 
a  complete  set  of  novelties  in  the  matter  of  food 
and  drink,  forgetting,  however,  that  they  might 
have  got  them  at  home  if  they  pleased.  The  tea 
and  coffee  and  bread  differ  from  what  they  are 
used  to  at  home  simply  in  being  worse.  He  is, 
too,  at  the  seaside,  very  apt  to  put  them  on  an  ex- 
clusively fish  diet,  in  the  belief  that  it  is  only 
people  who  live  by  the  sea  who  get  fish,  and  that  city 
people,  weary  of  meat,  must  be  longing  for  fish. 
The  boarders,  this  first  summer,  having  persuaded 
him  to  take  them,  are  of  course  too  modest  to 
remonstrate,  or  even  to  hint,  and  go  on  to  the  end 
eating  what  is  set  before  them,  and  pretending 
to  be  thankful,  and  try  to  keep  up  their  failing 
strength  by  being  a  great  deal  in  the  open  air,  and 
admiring  the  scenery.  After  they  leave,  he  is  apt 
to  be  astonished  by  the  amount  of  cash  he  finds 
himself  possessed  of,  probably  more  than  he  ever 
handled  before  at  one  time,  except  when  he  mort- 
gaged his  farm,  and  comes  to  the  conclusion  that 
taking  summer  boarders  is  an  excellent  thing,  and 
worth  cultivating. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SUMMER  RESORT    297 

In  the  next  stage  he  seeks  them,  and  perhaps  is 
emboldened  by  the  advice  of  somebody  to  adver- 
tise the  place,  and  try  to  get  hold  of  some  editors 
or  ministers  whose  names  he  can  use  as  references, 
and  who  will  talk  it  up.  He  soon  secures  one  or 
two  of  each,  and  they  then  tell  him  that  his  house 
is  frequented  by  intellectual  or  "  cultured  "  people ; 
and  he  becomes  more  elated  and  more  enterpris- 
ing, enlarges  the  dining-room,  adds  on  a  wing,  re- 
lieves his  wife  of  the  cooking  by  hiring  a  woman 
in  the  nearest  town,  and  gives  more  meat  and 
stronger  coffee,  and,  little  by  little,  grows  into  a 
hotel-keeper,  with  an  office  and  a  register.  His 
neighbors,  startled  by  his  success,  follow  his  ex- 
ample, it  maybe  only  longo  intervatto,  and  soon  the 
place  becomes  a  regular  "  resort,"  with  girls  and 
boys  in  white  flannel,  lawn-tennis  (which  succeeds 
croquet),  a  livery-stable,  stages,  an  ice-cream  store 
with  a  soda-water  fountain,  a  new  church,  and 
with  strange  names  taken  out  of  books  for  the 
neighboring  hills  and  lanes  and  brooks. 

This  stage  may  last  for  years — in  some  places  it 
has  been  known  to  last  thirty  or  forty  without  any 
change,  beyond  the  opening  of  new  hotels — and  it 
becomes  marked  by  crowds  of  people,  who  go  back 
every  year  in  the  character  of  old  boarders,  get  the 
best  rooms,  and  are  on  familiar  terms  of  friendship 
with  the  proprietor  and  the  older  waiter  -  girls. 


298  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

But  it  may  be  brought  to  a  close,  and  is  now  being 
brought  to  a  close  in  scores  of  American  watering- 
places,  by  the  appearance  of  the  cottager,  who  has 
become  to  the  boarder  what  the  red  squirrel  is  to 
the  gray,  a  ruthless  invader  and  exterminator. 
The  first  cottager  is  almost  always  a  boarder,  so 
that  there  is  no  means  of  discovering  his  approach 
and  resisting  his  advances.  In  nine  cases  out  of 
ten  he  is  a  simple  guest  at  the  farm-house  or  the 
hotel,  without  any  discoverable  airs  or  pretensions, 
on  whom  the  scenery  has  made  such  an  impression 
that  he  quietly  buys  a  lot  with  a  fine  view.  The 
next  year  he  builds  a  cottage  on  it,  and  gradually, 
and  it  may  be  at  first  imperceptibly,  separates 
himself  in  feeling  and  in  standards  from  his  fellow- 
boarders.  The  year  after  he  is  in  the  cottage,  and 
the  mischief  is  done.  The  change  has  come. 
Caste  has  been  established,  with  all  its  attendant 
evils.  The  community,  once  so  simple  and  homo- 
geneous, is  now  divided  into  two  classes,  one  of 
which  looks  down  on  the  other.  More  cottages 
are  built,  with  trim  lawns  and  private  lawn-tennis 
grounds,  with  "shandy-gaff"  and  "tennis-cup" 
concealed  on  tables  in  tents.  Then  the  dog-cart 
with  the  groom  in  buckskin  and  boots,  the  Irish 
red  setter,  the  saddle-horse  with  the  banged  tail, 
the  phaeton  with  the  two  ponies,  the  young  men  in 
knickerbockers  carrying  imported  racquets,  the 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SUMMER  RESORT    299 

girls  with  the  banged  hair,  the  club,  ostensibly  for 
newspaper  reading,  but  really  for  secret  gin-fizzes 
and  soda-cocktails,  make  their  appearance,  with 
numerous  other  monarchical  excrescences.  The 
original  farmer,  whose  pristine  board  was  the  be- 
ginning of  all  this,  has  probably  by  this  time  sold 
enough  land  to  the  cottagers  to  enable  him  to  give 
up  taking  boarders  and  keeping  a  hotel,  and  is  able 
to  stay  in  bed  like  a  gentleman  most  of  the  winter, 
and  sit  on  a  bench  in  his  shirt-sleeves  all  summer. 
Very  soon  the  boarder,  unable  to  put  up  with 
the  growing  haughtiness  of  the  cottager,  and  witli 
exclusion  from  his  entertainments,  withdraws  si- 
lently and  unobtrusively  from  the  scenes  he  once 
enjoyed  so  much,  to  seek  out  another  unsophisti- 
cated farmer,  and  begin  once  more,  probably  when 
well  on  in  life,  with  hope  and  strength  abated,  the 
heavy  work  of  opening  up  another  watering-place 
and  developing  its  resources.  The  silent  suffering 
there  is  in  this  process,  which  may  be  witnessed 
to-day  in  hundreds  of  the  most  beautiful  spots  in 
America,  probably  none  know  but  those  who  have 
gone  through  it.  In  fact,  the  dislodgment  along 
our  coast  and  in  our  mountains  of  the  boarder  by 
the  cottager  is  to-day  the  great  summer  tragedy 
of  American  life.  Winter  has  tragedies  of  its 
own,  which  may  be  worse  ;  but  summer  has  noth- 
ing like  it,  nothing  which  imposes  such  a  strain  on 


300  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

character  and  so  severely  tests  early  training. 
The  worst  of  it — the  pity  of  it,  we  might  say — is 
that  this  is  not  the  expulsion  of  the  inferior  by  the 
superior  race,  which  is  going  on  in  so  many  parts 
of  the  world,  and  which  Darwin  is  teaching  us  to 
look  upon  with  equanimity.  The  boarder  is  often, 
if  not  generally,  the  cottager's  superior  in  culture, 
in  acquirements,  and  in  variety  of  social  expe- 
rience. He  does  not  board  because  he  likes  the 
food,  but  simply  because  it  enables  him  to  live  in 
the  midst  of  beautiful  scenery.  He  eats  the  far- 
mer's poor  fare  contentedly,  because  he  finds  it  is 
sufficient  to  maintain  his  sense  of  natural  beauty 
and  the  clearness  of  all  his  moral  perceptions  un- 
impaired, and  to  brace  his  nerves  for  the  great 
battle  with  evil  which  he  has  been  carrying  on  in 
the  city,  and  to  which  he  means  to  return  after  a 
fortnight  or  a  month  or  six  weeks,  as  the  case  may 
be.  We  fear,  in  fact,  that  very  few  indeed  of  our 
summer  cottages  contain  half  so  much  noble  en- 
deavor and  power  of  self-sacrifice  as  the  boarding- 
houses  they  are  displacing. 

The  progress  made  by  the  cottager  in  driving 
the  boarder  away  from  some  of  the  most  attractive 
places,  both  in  the  hills  and  on  the  seaboard,  is 
very  steady.  Among  these  Bar  Harbor  occupies 
a  leading  position.  It  was,  for  fully  fifteen  years 
after  its  discovery,  frequented  exclusively  by  a  veiy 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SUMMER  RESORT    301 

high  order  of  boarders,  and  probably  has  been  the 
scene  of  more  plain  living  and  high  thinking  than 
any  other  summer  spot  on  the  seacoast.  It  was, 
in  fact,  remarkable  at  one  time  for  an  almost  un- 
healthy intellectual  stimulation  through  an  exclu- 
sively fish  diet.  But  the  purity  of  the  air  and  the 
grandeur  of  the  scenery  brought  a  yearly  increas- 
ing tide  of  visitors  from  about  1860  onward.  These 
visitors  were,  until  about  five  years  ago,  almost 
exclusively  boarders,  and  the  development  of  the 
place  as  a  summer  resort  was  prodigious.  The 
little  houses  of  the  original  half  farmers,  half  fish- 
ermen, who  welcomed,  or  rather  did  not  welcome, 
the  first  explorers,  grew  rapidly  into  little  board- 
ing-houses, then  into  big  boarding-houses,  then 
into  hotels  with  registers.  Then  the  hotels  grew 
larger  and  larger,  and  the  callings  of  the  steamer 
more  frequent,  until  the  place  became  famous 
and  crowded. 

All  this  while,  however,  the  hold  of  the  boarder 
on  it  remained  unshaken.  He  was  monarch  of  all 
he  surveyed.  No  one  on  the  island,  except  the 
landlords,  held  his  head  higher.  There  was  one 
distinction  between  boarders,  but  it  was  not  one 
to  wound  anybody's  self-love :  some  were  "  meal- 
ers,"  or  persons  eating  in  the  hotel  where  they 
lodged ;  and  others  were  "  haul-mealers,"  or  per- 
sons who  were  collected  and  brought  to  their  food 


303  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

in  wagons.  But  this  classification  produced  no 
heart-burning.  The  mealer  loved  and  respected 
the  haul-mealer,  or  wished  him  in  Jericho,  and 
the  haul-mealer  in  like  manner  the  mealer,  on 
general  grounds,  like  other  persons  with  whom  he 
came  in  contact,  without  any  reference  to  his  place 
of  abode.  All  were  covered  by  the  grand  old  name 
of  boarder,  and  that  was  enough.  A  happier, 
easier,  freer,  and  more  curiously  dressed  summer 
community  than  Bar  Harbor  in  those  early  days 
was  not  to  be  found  on  our  coast. 

We  do  not  know  exactly  when  the  cottager  first 
made  his  appearance  on  those  rugged  shores,  but 
it  is  certain  that  his  approaches  were  more  insid- 
ious than  they  have  ever  been  anywhere.  He  did 
not  proclaim  himself  all  at  once.  The  first  cot- 
tages were  very  plain  structures,  which  he  cun- 
ningly spoke  of  as  "  shanties,"  or  "  log  huts,"  in 
which  he  simply  lodged,  and  went  to  the  hotels  or 
neighboring  farm-houses  for  his  food  in  the  sim- 
ple and  unpretending  character  of  a  haul-mealer. 
For  a  good  while,  therefore,  he  excited  neither  sus- 
picion nor  alarm,  and  the  hotel-keepers  welcomed 
him  heartily,  and  all  went  on  smoothly.  Gradu- 
ally, however,  he  threw  off  all  disguise,  bought 
Jand  at  high  prices,  and  began  unblushingly  to 
erect  "  marine  villas "  on  it,  with  everything  that 
the  name  implies.  He  has  now  got  possession  of 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SUMMER  RESORT    303 

all  the  desirable  sites  from  the  Ovens  down  to  the 
Great  Head,  and  has  surrounded  himself  with  all 
the  luxuries,  just  as  at  Newport.  The  consequence 
is,  although  the  sea  and  sky  and  the  mountains 
and  the  rocks  retain  all  their  charm,  the  boarder 
is  no  longer  happy.  He  finds  himself  relegated  to 
a  secondary  position.  He  is  abashed  when  on  foot 
or  in  his  humble  buckboard  he  meets  the  haughty 
cottager  in  his  dog -cart  or  victoria.  He  has 
neither  dog  nor  horse,  while  the  cottager  has  both. 
He  was  once  proud  of  staying  at  Rodick's  or  lay- 
man's ;  now  he  begins  to  be  ashamed  of  it.  He 
finds  that  the  cottagers,  who  are  the  permanent 
residents,  have  a  society  of  their  own,  in  which  he 
is  either  not  welcome  or  is  a  mere  outsider.  He 
finds  that  the  very  name  of  boarder,  which  he  once 
wore  like  a  lily,  has  become  a  term  of  inferiority. 
Worse  than  all,  he  finds  himself  confounded  with 
a  still  lower  class,  known  at  Bar  Harbor  as  "  the 
tourist  "—elsewhere  called  the  excursionist — who 
comes  by  the  hundred  on  the  steamers  in  linen 
dusters,  and  is  compelled  by  force  of  circumstances 
to  "  do  "  Mount  Desert  in  twenty-four  hours,  and 
therefore  enters  on  his  task  without  shame  or 
scruple,  roams  over  the  cottager's  lawn,  stares  into 
his  windows,  breaks  his  fences,  and  sometimes  asks 
him  for  a  free  lunch.  The  boarder,  of  course, 
looks  down  on  this  man,  but  when  both  are  on  the 


304  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

road  or  on  the  piazza  of  the  hotel  how  are  they  to 
be  distinguished  ?     They  are  not,  and  cannot  be. 

The  worst  of  it  all  is,  however,  that  the  boarder 
finds  that  the  cottager  has  enclosed  some  of  his 
favorite  walks.  He  can  no  longer  get  to  them 
without  trespassing  or  intruding.  He  can  only 
look  wistfully  from  the  dusty  high-road  at  the  spots 
on  which  he  probably  once  "  rocked  "  with  the  girl 
who  is  now  his  wife,  or  chopped  logic  with  profes- 
sional or  clerical  friends,  whom  "  the  growth  of 
the  place  "  has  long  ago  driven  to  fresh  fields  and 
pastures  new.  There  is  something  very  interest- 
ing and  touching  about  these  old  Mount  Deserters 
of  the  first  period,  between  1860  and  1870,  who 
fled  even  before  the  enlargement  of  the  hotels,  and 
to  whom  cottages  at  Bar  Harbor  are  almost  un- 
thinkable. One  finds  them  in  undeveloped  sum- 
mer resorts  in  out-of-the-way  places  along  the 
American  coast,  often  on  the  Alps  or  in  Norway, 
or  on  the  Scotch  lakes,  still  tender,  and  simple, 
and  unassuming,  and  cheery,  older  of  course  and 
generally  stouter,  but  with  the  memories  of  the 
mountains,  and  the  rocks,  and  tho  islands,  of  the 
poor  food,  "  which  made  no  difference,  because  the 
air  was  fine,"  still  as  fresh  as  ever,  but  without  a 
particle  of  bitterness.  They  wander  much,  but 
wander  as  they  may  they  find  no  summer  resorts 
which  can  have  for  them  the  charm  of  French- 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SUMMER  RESORT    305 

man's  Bay  or  Newport  Mountain,  and  no  vehicle 
which  touches  so  many  chords  in  their  hearts  as 
the  primeval  buckboard,  in  the  days  when  it  could 
only  be  hired  as  a  great  favor. 

The  cottager,  too,  sets  no  bounds  to  his  pre- 
tensions as  to  territory.  His  policy,  apparently 
the  old  policy  of  the  conqueror  everywhere,  is  to 
let  the  boarder  go  up  the  coast  and  discover  the 
most  attractive  resorts,  and  allow  him  to  report 
on  them  in  the  newspapers,  write  poetry  about 
them,  lay  the  scene  of  novels  and  plays  in  them, 
and  then  pursue  him  and  eradicate  him  from  the 
soil  as  a  burden  if  not  a  nuisance.  That  he  makes 
a  resort  far  more  beautiful  to  the  eye  than  the 
boarder  there  is  no  denying.  He  covers  it  with 
beautiful  houses  ;  he  converts  the  scraggy,  yellow 
pastures  into  smooth,  green  lawns  ;  he  fills  the 
rock  crevices  with  flowers ;  he  introduces  better 
food  and  neater  clothing  and  the  latest  dodges 
in  plumbing.  But  these  things  are  only  for  the 
few — in  fact,  the  very  few.  An  area  which  sup- 
ports a  hundred  happy  boarders  will  only  bring 
one  cottager  to  perfection.  Moreover,  it  is  im- 
possible, no  matter  how  much  the  country  may 
flourish,  that  all  Americans  who  leave  the  city  in 
summer  should  by  any  effort  become  cottagers. 
The  mass  of  them  must  always  be  boarders  and 
remain  boarders,  and  we  would  warn  the  cottagers 
20 


30C  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

that  it  may  become  dangerous  to  push  them  too 
hard  and  too  far.  Much  farther  east  or  north  on 
the  coast  they  will  not  go  without  turning  on  their 
persecutors.  They  will  not  put  up  with  the  shores 
of  Labrador  or  Greenland,  no  matter  how  hot  the 
season  may  be.  The  survival  of  the  fittest  is  a 
great  law,  and  has  worked  wonders  in  the  animal 
world,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  has  to 
work  in  our  day  in  subordination  to  that  greater 
law  of  morality  which  makes  weakness  itself  a 
strong  tower  of  defence. 

The  future  at  all  our  leading  seashore  places,  in 
truth,  belongs  to  the  Cottager,  and  it  is  really  use- 
less to  resist  him.  His  march  along  the  American 
coast  is  nearly  as  resistless  as  that  of  the  hordes 
who  issued  from  the  plains  of  Scythia  to  over- 
throw the  Roman  Empire.  He  moves  on  all  the 
"  choice  sites "  without  haste,  with  the  calm  and 
rernorselessness  of  the  man  who  knows  that  the 
morrow  is  his.  He  has  two  tremendous  forces  at 
his  back,  against  which  no  boarder  can  stand  up. 
One  is  the  growing  passion,  or  fashion,  if  any  one 
likes  to  call  it  so,  of  Americans  to  live  in  their 
own  houses,  both  summer  and  winter.  This  is 
rapidly  taking  possession  of  all  classes,  from  the 
New  England  mechanic,  who  puts  up  his  shanty  or 
tent  on  the  seashore,  to  the  millionaire  who  builds 
his  hundred-thousand  dollar  villa  on  his  thirty- 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SUMMER  RESORT     307 

thousand  dollar  lot.  Everybody  who  can  seeks  to 
be  at  home  all  the  year  round,  let  the  home  be 
never  so  small  or  humble,  and  the  life  in  it  never 
so  rough.  This  is  a  change  in  the  national  man- 
ners which  nobody  can  regret,  but  it  is  a  change 
from  which  the  boarder  must  suffer,  and  which 
must  cost  him  much  wandering  and  many  tears. 
The  other  is  the  spread  of  the  love  of  the  seashore 
among  the  vast  population  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley,  whose  wealth  is  becoming  great,  for  whom 
long  railroad  journeys  have  no  terrors,  and  who 
are  likely  now  to  send  their  thousands  every  year 
to  compete  with  the  "  money  kings  "  of  the  East 
for  the  best  villa  sites  along  the  coast.  And  be  it 
remembered  that  although  our  population  doubles 
every  twenty-five  years,  our  rocky  Atlantic  shore, 
which  is  what  all  most  love  to  seek — the  sand  is 
tame  and  dreary  in  comparison — remains  a  fixed 
quantity.  It  only  extends  from  New  York  to 
Eastport,  Me.,  and  it  only  contains  a  limited 
number  of  building  lots.  These  are  now  being 
rapidly  bought  up  and  built  on,  or  held  on  specu- 
lation, and  in  some  places,  where  land  only  brought 
ten  dollars  an  acre  fifteen  years  ago,  are  held  at 
monstrous  prices. 

To  fight  against  these  tendencies  is  useless. 
The  wise  boarder  will  not  so  do,  nor  waste  his 
time  in  bewailing  his  fate.  It  is  absurd  for  him 


308  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

to  expect  that  long  stretches  of  delightful  shore 
will  be  left  wild  and  uninhabited  and  unimproved, 
for  him  to  walk  over  for  three  or  four  weeks  every 
summer.  Not  even  the  Henry  George  regime 
would  oust  the  cottager,  for  under  it  he  would 
simply  rent  what  he  owns ;  a  cottager  he  would 
still  remain.  Finally,  the  boarder  must  remember 
that  though  the  cottager,  like  woman,  when  he  is 
bad  is  very  bad,  when  good  is  delightful.  Noth- 
ing the  American  summer  has  to  show  can  sur- 
pass a  cottager,  and  we  rejoice  to  know  that  the 
number  of  good  cottagers  every  year  grows 
larger.  At  his  best  though  he  may  be  stern  in 
the  assertion  of  his  rights  of  property,  there  is 
no  simpler,  honester  gentleman  than  he,  and  the 
moral  earnestness  with  the  want  of  which  the  more 
austere  boarder  has  been  apt  to  reproach  him, 
grows  very  rapidly  after  he  gets  his  lawn  made 
and  his  place  in  order. 


SUMMER  REST 

THE  question  has  occurred  to  a  good  many,  and 
has  been  more  than  once  publicly  asked,  When 
do  the  people  who  frequent  "  Summer  Schools  " 
of  philosophy,  theology,  and  the  like,  which  are 
now  showing  themselves  at  some  of  the  watering- 
places,  get  their  rest  or  vacation  ?  At  these 
schools  both  the  lecturers  or  "  paper  "  readers  and 
the  audience  are  engaged  in  the  same  or  nearly 
the  same  work  as  during  the  rest  of  the  year,  and 
therefore  in  summer  get  no  rest.  We  have  been 
asked,  for  instance,  whether  a  clergyman  or  pro- 
fessor who  has  a  period  of  leisure  allotted  to  him 
in  summer,  in  order  that  he  may  "  recruit,"  as  it  is 
called,  is  not  guilty  of  some  sort  of  abuse  of  con- 
fidence, if,  instead  of  amusing  himself  or  lying 
fallow,  he  goes  to  a  Summer  School,  and  passes 
several  weeks  in  discussions  which,  to  be  profit- 
able either  to  himself  or  his  hearers,  must  put 
some  degree  of  strain  on  his  faculties. 

The  answer  undoubtedly  is,  that  nobody  goes  to 
a  Summer  School  who  could  get  refreshment 


310  REFLECTIONS  S.ND   COMMENTS 

through  sheer  idleness.  One  of  the  greatest  mis- 
takes of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  one  which  has  come 
down  to  our  own  time  in  educationT  in  theology.,  and 
in  medicine,  was  that  all  men's  needs,  both  spirit- 

"^ ""• ^™**"'1" """"'"""• "M^— — — • ™« •ta*>MMMh»B^. 

ual,  mental,  andphysical,  are  the  same  ;  and  it  long 
made  the  world  a  dreadful  place  for  the  excep- 
tional or  peculiar.  In  most  things  we  have  given 
up  the  theory.  It  was  soonest  given  up  as  re- 
gards food,  because  the  evidence  against  it  was 
there  plainest  and  most  overwhelming,  in  the  se- 
vere suffering  inflicted  on  some  people  by  things 
"  disagreeing  with  them,"  as  it  was  called,  which 
others  relished  and  profited  by.  It  has  only  been 
surrendered  with  regard  to  children  and  youths, 
however,  after  a  hard  struggle.  The  idea  of  a 
young  person  being  entitled  to  special  treatment 
of  any  kinj^^that  is,  having^  in  any  respect  a 
marked  individuality — remains  to  this"  day  odious 
to  a  great  many  of^  our_theologians  ancMjeachejs. 
It  is,  however,  rapidly  making  its  way,  and  has 
already  obtained  a  secure  footing  in  some  of  the 
colleges.  It  is  the  hotels,  perhaps,  which  are 
now  the  strongholds  of  the  old  doctrine,  and  in 
which  a  person  who  wants  what  nobody  else  wants 
is  considered  most  odious ;  partly,  of  course,  be- 
cause he  gives  extra  trouble,  but  mainly  because 
he  is  considered  to  be  given  up  to  a  delusion  about 
himself  and  his  constitution.  There  is  probably 


SUMMER  REST  311 

nothing  which  excites  the  anger  and  contempt  of  a 
summer-hotel  clerk  more  than  a  request  for  some- 
thing which  is  not  supplied  to  everybody  or  which 
nobody  else  asks  for.  We  remember  once  irritat- 
ing a  White  Mountain  hotel-keeper  extremely  by 
asking  to  be  allowed  to  ride  up  Mount  Washington 
alone,  instead  of  in  a  party  of  forty.  He  not  only 
refused  our  request,  but  he  punished  us  for  mak- 
ing it  by  selecting  for  our  use  the  worst  pony  in 
his  stable,  and  watching  us  mounting  it  with  a 
diabolical  sneer. 

There  is,  however,  still  a  good  deal  of  intoler- 
ance about  people's  mode  of  spending  their  vaca- 
tion. Those  who  take  it  by  simply  sitting  still  or 
lounging  with  no  particular  occupation,  are  more 
or  less  worried  by  the  people  who  take  their  rest 
actively  and  with  much  movement  and  bustle.  So 
also  the  young  man  who  goes  off  fishing  and  hunt- 
ing, on  the  other  hand,  scorns  the  young  man  who 
hangs  about  the  hotels  and  plays  lawn-tennis,  or 
goes  to  picnics  with  the  girls — a  rapidly  diminish- 
ing class,  let  us  add.  A  correspondent,  who  takes 
a  low  view  of  sermons,  wrote  to  us  the  other  day 
complaining  of  some  mention  which  recently  ap- 
peared in  our  columns  of  Mount  Desert  as  a  good 
place  for  "  tired  clergymen,"  and  wished  to  know 
what  there  was  to  tire  them,  seeing  that  they  did 
nothing  but  produce  two  essays  a  week,  which 


312  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

need  not  be  very  original.  The  truth  is,  however, 
that  everybody's  occupation,  including  that  of  the 
young  man  who  does  nothing  at  all,  does  a  great 
deal  to  tire  him.  What  probably  tires  a  minister 
most  is  not  the  sermons,  but  his  parishioners ;  and 
we  suspect  that  nine-tenths  of  the  ministers,  if 
they  made  a  clean  breast  of  it,  would  confess  that 
rest  to  them  meant  getting  away  from  their  parish- 
ioners, and  not  in  getting  away  from  the  sermons. 
Sermon  -  writing  in  our  day,  when  the  area  over 
which  a  preacher  may  select  his  subject  is  so 
greatly  widened,  is  probably  to  a  reflective  man  a 
great  help  and  relief,  as  furnishing  what  nearly 
every  student  needs  to  stimulate  study — a  means 
of  expression.  Sustained  solitary  thinking  is 
something  of  which  very  few  men  are  capable.  To 
keep  up  what  is  called  active-mindedness  nearly 
everyone  needs  somebody  to  talk  to.  Conversa- 
tion with  a  friend  is  enough  for  most,  but  those 
who  have  more  to  say  find  a  sermon  or  a  magazine 
article  just  the  kind  of  intellectual  stimulus  they 
need.  What  probably  most  wears  on  a  clergy- 
man's nerves  are  his  pastoral  duties,  which  do  not 
consist  simply  in  consoling  people  in  great  trials, 
but  in  listening  to  their  fussy  accounts  of  small 
ones.  Nine-tenths  of  a  minister's  patients,  like  a 
doctor's,  do  not  know  what  is  the  matter  with  them, 
and  consult  a  physician  largely  because  they  take 


SUMMER  REST  313 

comfort  in  talking  to  anybody  about  themselves, 
aud  doctors  and  clergymen  are  the  only  persons 
who  are  bound  to  listen  to  them.  A  professor  or 
teacher  is  somewhat  similarly  situated.  His  busi- 
ness is  the  most  wearing  of  human  occupations — 
that  of  putting  knowledge  into  heads  only  half 
willing  to  receive  it,  and  persuading  a  large  num- 
ber of  people  to  do  their  duty  to  whom  duty  is 
odious. 

To  these  men,  a  Summer  School  of  philosophy 
or  theology,  or  anything  else,  must  be  repose  of  the 
best  sort.  It  gives  light  work  of  the  kind  they 
love,  free  from  all  nagging,  and  in  good  air  and 
fine  scenery.  At  such  schools,  too,  one  finds  uses 
for  "papers"  that  no  periodical  will  print,  and 
which  no  audience  would  assemble  to  listen  to  in  a 
city  in  the  busy  part  of  the  year,  and  to  many  meji 
an_audience  of  any  sort,  interested  or  uninterested. 

The  persons  who  perhaps  find  it  hardest  to  get 
rest  in  summer  are  brokers.  Their  activity  in  their 
business  and  the  excitement  attending  it  are  so 
great,  that  quiet  to  them,  more  than  to  most  other 
men,  is  a  hell ;  so  that  their  vacation  is  a  problem 
not  easy  of  solution,  except  to  the  rich  ones,  who 
have  yachts  and  horses  without  limit.  Even  to 
those,  every  day  of  a  vacation  has  to  be  full  of 
movement  and  change.  An  hour  not  filled  by  some 


314  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

sort  of  activity,  spent  on  a  piazza  or  under  a  tree, 
is  to  them  an  hour  wasted.  A  land  where  it  was 
always  afternoon  would  be  to  them  the  most  "  odi- 
ous section  of  country  "  on  earth.  The  story  of 
one  of  them,  who  in  Borne  lost  flesh  through  pi- 
ning for  "  the  corner  of  Wall  and  William,"  is  well 
known.  Such  a  man  finds  nearly  all  summer  re- 
sorts vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit,  because  none 
of  them  provides  excitement.  The  class  known  as 
financiers,  such  as  presidents  of  banks  and  insur- 
ance companies,  is  much  better  off,  because  it  has 
Saratoga.  Its  members  have  generally  reached 
the  time  of  life  when  men  love  to  sit  still,  and 
when  the  liver  is  torpid,  and  they  are  generally 
men  of  means,  and  wear  black  broadcloth  at  all 
seasons,  as  being  what  they  have  from  their  youth 
considered  outward  and  visible  signs  of  "  respect- 
ability "  in  the  financial  sense.  What  they  need  is 
a  place  where  they  can  have  their  livers  roused 
without  exercise,  and  this  the  mineral  water  does 
for  them  ;  where  they  can  see  a  good  deal  going 
on  and  many  evidences  of  wealth,  without  moving 
from  their  chairs  ;  and  where  their  financial  stand- 
ing will  follow  them  ;  and  for  this  there  is  perhaps 
no  place  in  the  country  like  Saratoga.  Newport 
has  not  nearly  as  much  solidity.  It  is  brighter 
and  gayer  and  more  select,  but  though  it  contains 
enormous  fortunes,  a  great  fortune  does  not  here 


SUMMER  REST  815 

do  so  much  for  a  man.  It  has  to  bear  the  compe- 
tition of  youth  and  beauty  and  polo  and  lawn- 
tennis.  The  young  man  with  little  besides  a  polo 
pony,  an  imported  racquet,  and  good  looks  counts 
for  a  good  deal  at  Newport ;  at  Saratoga  he  would 
be  nobody. 


THE  SURVIVAL  OF  TYPES 

The  London  Daily  News,  in  the  course  of  an 
article  on  what  it  calls  "  International  Reproaches," 
refers  to  the  fact  that  there  is  much  that  is  "  tra- 
ditional "  in  them.  It  thinks  that,  both  in  America 
and  in  France,  the  qualities  and  peculiarities  at- 
tributed to  English  people  are  derived,  to  a  great 
extent,  less  from  experience  than  from  inherited 
tradition.  "We  hear  that  Englishmen  are  rude 
to  ladies ;  that  they  fail  to  yield  them  precedence 
at  the  ticket-offices  of  steamboats  and  railway  sta- 
tions; that  they  complain  of  everything  that  is 
given  them  as  food ;  that  they  occupy  more  than 
their  share  of  public  conveyances  with  multitud- 
inous wraps,  sticks,  and  umbrellas.  They  assert 
themselves,  it  would  seem,  when  they  have  placed 
3,000  miles  between  themselves  and  their  old 
home.  There  is,  however,  in  all  these  complaints 
the  ring  of  old  coin."  In  the  same  way  it  says 
that  the  Parisian  of  the  boulevards  still  believes 
the  Englishman  to  be  a  creature  who  wears  long 


THE  SURVIVAL   OF  TYPES  817 

red  whiskers  of  the  mutton-chop  species,  and 
wears  a  plaid — although,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
typical  Englishman  of  to-day  does  not  look  like 
this  at  all. 

Anyone  interested  in  the  matter  might  make  a 
very  queer  collection  of  types  which,  having  dis- 
appeared from  actual  life,  survive  in  the  popular 
imagination,  and  by  surviving  keep  alive  interna- 
tional prejudice,  hostility,  suspicion,  or  distrust, 
and  which  go  on  doing  duty  in  this  way  for  years 
and  years,  until  suddenly  some  fine  day  it  is  dis- 
covered that  they  are  out  of  date  and  must  in  fut- 
ure be  dispensed  with.  There  is,  for  instance, 
our  old  friend,  the  stage  Irishman.  How  often 
have  our  hearts  been  touched  by  the  qualities  of 
gratitude,  devotion  to  sentiment,  faithful  friend- 
ship, and  heroism  of  this  noble  creature.  No 
doubt,  there  must  have  been  a  time  when  he  was 
as  common  in  Ireland  as  he  has  been  in  our  day  in 
melodrama.  But  the  Irishman,  as  he  exists  in 
New  York,  and  as  he  is  described  by  those  who 
have  seen  him  at  home,  is  strangely  unlike  the 
type.  He  is  a  decidedly  practical,  hard-headed 
man,  with  a  keen  eye  to  the  main  chance,  a  con- 
siderable fondness  for  fighting,  and  a  disposition 
which  we  should  call  the  reverse  of  sentimental. 
Harrigan  and  Hart  represent  the  actual  Irishman 
in  America  capitally  at  their  little  theatre  ill 


318  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

Broadway,  yet  the  stage  Irishman  is  to  multitudes 
of  Americans  a  more  real  creature  than  the  actual 
Irishman,  and  we  suppose  there  is  hardly  a  Demo- 
cratic statesman  from  one  end  of  the  country  to 
the  other  who  has  not  constantly  before  his  mind 
an  image  of  him,  by  the  contemplation  of  which 
he  solves  many  of  the  knottiest  problems  of  con- 
temporary politics. 

Then  there  is  the  Dundreary  Englishman,  first- 
cousin  or  lineal  descendant  of  the  Englishman  so 
dear  to  the  French  imagination.  Dundreary  really 
represents,  as  we  know  very  well,  when  we  think 
about  it,  a  past  type  of  swell  as  extinct  as  the  do- 
do. It  is  not  common  any  longer  for  English 
swells  to  change  all  their  rs  to  ws,  and  to  spice 
their  sentences  with  "aw-aws."  We  have  num- 
bers of  them  over  here  every  year,  but  we  do  not 
hear  them  talk  nowadays  the  once  familiar  Dun- 
dreary language.  Yet  there  is  hardly  a  newspaper 
in  the  United  States  whose  funny  man  does  not 
assume  for  the  benefit  of  his  readers  that  Dun- 
dreary is  alive,  and  every  now  and  then  reproduce 
him  with  gusto.  It  is  not  in  Punch  that  we  find 
Dundreary,  but  in  the  funny  department  of  the 
Oshkosh  Monitor  and  the  "  All  Sorts  "  column  of 
the  Bungtown  Clarion.  Even  Puck  contributes  to 
perpetuate  the  belief  in  the  continued  existence  of 
Dundreary  by  devoting  a  column  a  week  to  ob- 


THE  SURVIVAL   OF  TYPES  319 

servations  on  American  society  in  the  Dundreary 
dialect,  which  thirty  years  ago  might  have  been 
decidedly  funny. 

Punch  still  has  John  Bull  as  a  national  type ; 
but  it  shows  great  reserve  in  the  use  of  him,  and 
now  continually  resorts  to  Britannia  as  a  substi- 
tute. Is  not  this  because  our  old  friend  John  is 
now  only  a  survival,  a  tradition  of  the  past  ?  The 
bluff,  stout,  honest,  red-faced,  irascible  rural  person 
— of  whom  the  photographs  of  John  Bright  remind 
us — has  really  been  supplanted  by  a  more  mod- 
ern, thinner,  nervous,  intellectual,  astute  type.  For 
English  use  the  Yankee  type  of  Uncle  Sam  still 
seems  to  represent  America,  although  it  belongs 
to  the  past  as  much  as  slavery  or  the  stage-coach. 
He  would  be  a  bold  man  who  should  undertake  to 
say  what  the  national  type  is  now ;  but  it  is  safe 
to  say  that  it  is  not  a  long,  thin,  cute  Yankee, 
dressed  in  a  swallow-tailed  coat  with  brass  but- 
tons, whittling  a  stick,  and  interlarding  his  conver- 
sation with  "  I  swan !  "  and  "  I  calc'late."  If  Mr. 
Lowell  were  writing  the  "  Biglow  Papers  "  now, 
would  "  Uncle  S."  serve  his  purpose  as  he  did  dur- 
ing the  war?  By  a  merciful  dispensation  of  Provi- 
dence, however,  Brother  Jonathan  and  Uncle  Sam 
still  live  on  in  the  imaginations  of  large  masses  of 
conservative  Englishmen,  and  no  doubt  enable 
many  a  Tory  to  people  the  United  States  with  a 


:«0  REFLECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

race  as  alien  from  that  which  actually  inhabits  it 
as  Zulus  would  be. 

In  the  same  way  it  may  be  possible — to  the 
Providence  that  guides  the  destinies  of  nations 
nothing  is  impossible — that  the  rude  Englishman 
is,  as  the  Daily  News  suggests,  getting  to  be  a 
survival.  The  Daily  News's  portrait  of  him  is 
fair  enough,  though  it  would  require  Americans 
who  have  suffered  from  him  to  do  him  real  justice. 
He  is,  or  was,  a  very  rude  person,  and  always 
seemed  to  take  great  delight  in  "  asserting  him- 
self "  in  such  a  way  as  to  produce  as  much  general 
annoyance  and  discomfort  as  possible.  During 
the  war  he  had  a  brilliant  career.  He  used  to 
come  over  and  express  great  surprise  at  the  silly 
fuss  made  about  the  Constitution  and  secession, 
and  profess  an  entire  inability  to  discover  what  it 
was  "  all  about."  If  they  want  to  go,  he  always 
said,  why  don't  you  let  'em  go  ?  What  is  the  use 
of  fighting  about  the  meaning  of  a  word  in  the 
dictionary?  It  was  in  small  things  as  in  great. 
When  he  went  into  society  he  dressed  to  suit  him- 
self, and  not  as  gentlemen  in  England  or  anywhere 
else  do,  thus  contriving  to  exhibit  a  general  con- 
tempt for  his  host  and  his  friends.  When  his 
meek  entertainer  ventured  to  offer  him  some  Ameri- 
can dish  which  he  did  not  like,  he  would  frankly 
warn  his  companions  against  it ;  and  if  he  asked 


THE  SURVIVAL   OF  TYPES  321 

for  sugar  in  his  coffee  lie  would,  in  the  same  out- 
spoken way,  explain  that  he  always  sweetened  it 
"  when  it  was  bad."  One  of  his  favorite  topics 
of  conversation  was  the  awful  corruption  and  rot- 
tenness of  American  society  and  politics,  and  he 
dwelt  so  much  upon  this  that  it  often  seemed  as  if 
what  he  was  really  interested  in  was  to  find  out 
whether  the  people  he  was  staying  with,  and  being 
entertained  by,  were  not  themselves,  if  the  truth 
were  known,  rotten  to  the  core. 

He  was  a  very  rude  man,  and  he  did  exist.  Biit 
is  he  gone,  or  going  ?  Is  the  time  coming  when 
we  shall  have  to  regard  him  too  as  a  survival, 
and  admit  that  the  rude  Englishman  is  a  creature 
of  the  past?  Time  and  continued  international 
experience  can  alone  settle  this  question.  There 
are,  however,  bitter  memories  of  past  sufferings  at 
his  hands  in  hundreds  of  American  homes,  that 
make  it  better  for  both  countries  not  to  probe  the 
subject  too  deeply. 

21 


WILL  WIMBLES 

Mr.  Thomas  Hughes's  attempt  to  provide  a  ref- 
uge in  Tennessee  for  the  large  class  of  young 
Englishmen  whom  he  calls  "  Will  Wimbles,"  after 
one  of  Sir  Eoger  de  Coverley's  friends  in  Adcli- 
son's  Spectator,  is  said  to  be  a  failure,  owing 
mainly  to  the  poverty  of  the  land  and  the  remote- 
ness of  the  markets.  An  acute  writer  in  the  Pall 
Mall  Gazette  maintains  that  there  is  another  and 
more  potent  cause  to  be  found  in  the  quality  of  the 
Will  Wimbles.  The  Will  Wimbles  are  the  young 
men  who  are  educated  in  the  public  schools  and 
universities,  or  at  least  in  the  public  schools,  and 
are  turned  out  into  the  world  between  eighteen 
and  twenty-one,  without  any  special  training  what- 
ever, but  with  the  manners  and  instincts  of  gentle- 
men, and  with  entire  willingness  to  take  to  any 
calling  but  the  lower  walks  of  "  trade."  The 
great  body  of  them  are  the  sons  of  middle-class 
parents — clergymen,  doctors,  lawyers,  and  small 
squires — whose  means  are  very  moderate,  and  who 
have  to  submit  to  more  or  less  privation  in  order  to 


WILL    WIMBLES  323 

send  their  sons  to  the  public  schools  at  all.  They 
do  it  in  order  to  launch  them  in  the  world  unmis- 
takably in  the  gentle  class,  and  in  order  to  enable 
them  to  form  their  first  social  relations  in  that 
class.  Unfortunately,  however,  as  the  writer  in 
the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  points  out,  the  tone  and  tem- 
per of  the  public  schools,  and  their  way  of  looking 
at  life,  are  the  products  of  a  vague,  but  none  the 
less  powerful,  assumption  that  every  boy  is  the  son 
of  a  man  with  about  five  thousand  pounds  a  year. 
The  whole  atmosphere  of  the  school  is  permeated 
with  this  assumption.  The  boys'  code  of  manners 
is  formed  in  it.  Their  intercourse  with  each  other 
is  more  or  less  influenced  by  it,  and  they  all  look 
out  on  the  world,  up  to  their  last  day  at  school, 
with  the  eyes  of  youths  whose  home  is  a  well- 
equipped  manor-house  surrounded  by  a  prosper- 
ous estate. 

The  love  of  the  middle-class  Englishman  of  every 
age  for  this  point  of  view  is  curiously  exemplified 
in  the  social  articles,  not  only  in  the  "society 
paper,"  properly  so  called,  but  in  the  Saturday 
Review.  The  troubles  and  perplexities  and  minor 
disappointments  of  life  form  a  favorite  topic  with 
the  writer  of  the  "  sub-leaders  "  in  this  last-named 
paper,  but  they  are  always  of  the  troubles,  per- 
plexities, and  disappointments  of  a  landed  gentle- 
man who  keeps  hunters,  and  has  a  stud  groom  and 


824  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

extensive  covers.  He  hardly  ever  examines  the 
state  of  mind  of  anyone  less  well-to-do  than  a 
younger  son  whose  means  only  allow  him  to  hunt 
two  days  in  a  week  instead  of  six*  and  who  has  to 
rely  on  invitations  for  his  shooting.  These  and 
their  sisters,  cousins,  and  aunts,  apparently  form 
the  reviewer's  entire  world,  and  the  only  world  in 
which  there  are  any  social  phenomena  worth  dis- 
cussion. It  is,  in  other  words,  a  world  made  up 
exclusively  of  "  gentlemen,"  and  of  the  persons, 
male  and  female,  who  wait  upon  them.  Its  sorrows 
are  the  sorrows  of  gentlemen,  and  arise  mostly  out 
of  the  failure  of  some  amusement,  or  the  loss  of 
the  money  with  which  amusements  are  provided, 
the  missing  of  some  social  distinction,  or  the  mis- 
conduct of  "upper  servants."  It  is,  however, 
really  the  only  world  that  the  English  public- 
school  boy  or  university  man  sees,  or  hears  of,  or 
thinks  about  while  in  statu  pupillari.  This  is  true, 
let  his  own  home  be  never  so  modest,  or  the  sacri- 
fices made  by  his  father  to  secure  him  the  fashion- 
able curriculum  be  never  so  painful.  The  result  is, 
of  course,  that  when  his  "  education  "  is  finished, 
he  is  really  only  prepared  for  what  is  technically 
called  a  gentleman's  life.  He  has  only  thought  of 
certain  employments  as  possible  to  him,  and  all 
these  are  exceedingly  hard  to  get.  The  manners 
of  the  great  bulk  of  mankind,  too,  are  more  or  less 


WILL    WI1TBLES  325 

repulsive  to  him,  and  so  is  a  good  deal  of  the  pop- 
ular morality.  In  short,  he  is  turned  out  a  "\Vill 
AVimble — or,  in  other  words,  a  good-hearted,  kind- 
ly, gentlemanly,  honorable  fellow,  who  is,  however, 
entirely  unfitted  for  the  social  milieu  in  which  he 
must  not  only  live,  but  make  a  living. 

Mr.  Hughes's  idea  has  been  that,  though  he  dis- 
likes trade,  and  is  a  little  too  nice  for  it  as  now 
carried  on,  at  least  on  the  retail  side,  he  has  an  in- 
nate liking  and  readiness  for  agriculture,  and  that, 
if  enabled  to  till  the  soil  under  pleasant,  or  at  least 
not  too  novel,  social  conditions,  he  would  do  it 
successfully.  Out  of  this  the  Rugby,  Tenn.,  ex- 
periment has  grown,  and  if  it  has  not  actually 
failed,  as  some  say,  it  is  certainly  too  early  to  pro- 
nounce it  a  success.  At  all  events,  the  signs  that  it 
is  going  to  fail  are  numerous.  Among  them  is  the 
deep  disappointment  of  the  settlers,  few  of  whom 
probably  realized  not  only  the  monotony  and  drud- 
gery of  labor  in  the  fields — these  things  can  be  borne 
by  men  with  stout  hearts  and  strong  arms — but  its 
effect  in  unfitting  a  man  for  any  kind  of  amusement. 
There  has  been  much  delusion  on  this  subject  in 
this  country,  where  far  more  is  known  by  the  read- 
ing class  about  all  kinds  of  manual  labor  than  is 
known  in  England.  The  possibility  of  working 
hard  in  the  fields  and  keeping  up  at  the  same  time 
some  process  of  intellectual  culture,  has  been  much 


C26  REFLECTIONS  AND   COMMENTS 

preached  among  us  both  by  educational  projectors 
and  social  reformers,  though  nearly  every  man  who 
listens  to  them  here  knows  the  effect  of  physical 
toil  in  the  open  air  in  producing  sleepiness  and 
mental  inertness.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore, 
that  it  should  find  ready  acceptance  in  England 
among  people  who  think  ability  to  bear  a  hard  day 
on  the  moors  after  grouse,  or  a  long  run  in  the  sad- 
dle after  the  hounds,  argues  capacity  to  hoe  pota- 
toes or  corn  for  twelve  hours,  and  settle  down  in 
the  evening,  after  a  bath  and  a  good  dinner,  to 
Dante,  or  Wallace,  or  Huxley. 

Will  Wimbles  are  much  less  common  among  us 
than  in  England.  We  fortunately  have  not  a 
dozen  great  endowments  used  in  turning  them 
out,  or  a  large  and  rich  society  occupied  in  spread- 
ing the  gentlemanly  view  of  life.  But  they,  nev- 
ertheless, are  more  numerous  than  is  altogether 
pleasant.  The  difficulty  which  our  college  gradu- 
ate experiences  in  getting  room  for  what  the  news- 
papers call  his  "  bark  "  on  the  stream  of  life,  is  one 
of  the  standing  jokes  of  our  light  literature.  We 
have  no  schools  which  take  the  place  of  the  Eng- 
lish public  schools  in  our  scheme  of  education. 
But  the  view  of  life  which  prevails  in  the  English 
public  schools  and  turns  out  the  Will  Wimbles,  is 
more  or  less  prevalent  in  our  colleges,  and  tends 
to  spread  as  the  wealth  of  the  class  which  sends 


WILL    WIMBLES  327 

its  boys  to  college  increases.  In  other  words,  col- 
leges are  to  a  much  greater  extent  than  they  used 
to  be  places  in  which  social  relations  are  found, 
rather  than  places  of  preparation  for  the  active 
work  of  life.  This  last  character,  indeed,  they 
almost  wholly  lost  when  they  ceased  to  have 
the  training  of  ministers  as  their  main  function. 
Scarcely  any  man  who  can  afford  it  now  likes  to 
refuse  his  son  a  college  education  if  the  boy  wants 
it ;  but  probably  not  one  boy  in  one  thousand  can 
say,  five  years  after  graduating,  that  he  has  been 
helped  by  his  college  education  in  making  his 
start  in  life.  It  may  have  been  never  so  useful  to 
him  as  a  means  of  moral  and  intellectual  culture, 
but  it  has  not  helped  to  adapt  him  to  the  environ- 
ment in  which  he  has  to  live  and  work ;  or,  in 
other  words,  to  a  world  in  which  not  one  man  in 
a  thousand  has  either  the  manners  or  cultivation 
of  a  gentleman,  or  changes  his  shirt  more  than 
once  a  week,  or  eats  with  a  fork. 

College  education  is  prevented  from  suffering  as 
much  from  this  source  in  popular  estimation  in 
England  as  it  does  here,  by  the  fact  that,  owing  to 
the  peculiar  political  traditions  of  the  country, 
college-bred  men  begin  life  in  a  large  number  of 
cases  in  possession  of  great  advantages  of  other 
kinds,  such  as  hereditary  wealth.  Here  they  have 
almost  all  to  face  the  world  on  their  own  merits, 


338  REFLECTIONS  AND  VOMXENTS 

and  in  so  far  as  they  face  it  feebly  or  unskilfully 
their  defects  are  set  down  in  the  popular  mind  to 
the  fact  that  they  went  to  college.  If  the  dis- 
credit ended  here,  it  would  perhaps  be  of  small 
consequence.  But  it  may  be  safely  said  that  the 
college  graduate  is  never  seen  groping  about  in 
a  helpless  and  timid  way  for  "  a  position,"  and 
shrinking  from  the  turmoil  and  dirt  of  some  walks 
of  life,  without  spreading  among  the  uncultivated 
a  contempt  for  culture  and  increasing  their  con- 
fidence in  the  rule  of  thumb.  The  mere  "going  to 
college  "  is  recognized  as  a  sign  of  pecuniary  ease, 
and  of  a  desire  for  social  advancement,  but  not  as 
preparation  for  the  kind  of  work  which  the  bulk  of 
the  community  is  doing,  and  thus  makes  mental 
culture  seem  less  desirable,  and  cultivated  men 
less  potent,  especially  in  politics. 

The  question  is  a  serious  one  for  all  colleges, 
and  it  is  not  here  only,  but  in  England  and  France, 
that  it  is  undergoing  grave  consideration.  In  Ger- 
many society  may  be  said  to  have  been  organized 
as  an  appendage  to  the  universities,  but  here  the 
universities  are  simply  appendages  to  society, 
which  is  continually  doubting  whether  their  exist- 
ence can  be  justified. 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  Dl  E  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


1985 


A    000651  016    8 


